Belly of the Beast
by FernWithy
Summary: At thirteen, new centurion Jason Grace has spent all of the life he remembers at Camp Jupiter, and he's itching to lead his first quest. When he hears about a sea monster threatening a small town in Oregon, he jumps at the chance.
1. My Wish Is Granted

**Belly of the Beast** ****

 **ONE:  
My Wish Is Granted**

I guess I could start out with some kind of warning, like "Be careful what you wish for" or "Don't wish for things you don't understand" or "Always floss after meals," but I won't. I don't think that's really the moral of this story, anyway. The wishing one, I mean. Well, probably not the flossing one, either, though that's at least advice you could follow. No one can follow the warning about wishing, because the whole thing about wishing is that you only do it when you don't know what it is you're being careful of. That's kind of a twisted-up sentence, but you probably know what I mean. If you ever wished for something, you know. Wishes don't have a lot of shape to them. They're not the same thing as dreams or goals. Just sort of… wishes.

Some people wish for fame. They're the ones who have never had it, or been near it. They just imagine that people notice you all the time and when people see you, they faint and tell you how wonderful you are instead of telling you that your homework is late and your bunk is a mess and no one likes you, anyway. Maybe they read about celebrities' heartbreaks - like having their houses broken into or getting caught snapping at someone because they were in a bad mood or being stalked by photographers until their cars go out of control - and think, _Poor little rich kids._ The people who have the magic thing just don't _appreciate_ it, the selfish, vain ingrates. If the wisher had fame, he'd be nice to everyone - after all, it's the little people who _grant_ fame - and use it to solve all the world's problems, and everyone would love him.

Some people wish for money. You can't blame them. It solves lots of problems, especially if the problem is not having any, and if they hear about how rich people spend eighty hours a week at work and are unhappy all the time, then that's because _those_ rich people just don't know how to balance their lives. If _they_ had money, they'd spend it on orphanages for puppies, and never miss their kid's softball game.

It's okay to feel that way. There's nothing wrong with it. (Unless, I guess, you go off the deep end and decide to punish the ingrates or whatever.) That's what wishing is for. It's just a thing that you do when you're bored, and it's not like you sit down and think, "I'm going to wish for something really stupid right now."

I didn't wish for fame or money.

No, like an idiot, I wished for adventure.

There's nothing stupider to wish for.

My name is Jason Grace.

I turned thirteen in July, just a couple of months before I got my wish. I guess most mortal kids wouldn't think my life was normal, but it really is, if you happen to be a Roman demigod. I live in the Fifth Cohort barracks. I got promoted to centurion last month over a few older kids, but I had seniority (I'll explain). I play war games and take monster classes. I also take math and English and history and Latin and all the other normal things that everyone takes.

I guess maybe I'm a little weird for a demigod, or at least people think I am. My dad's Jupiter, for one thing. I'm the only son of Jupiter around, since he promised not to have any more kids after World War II (good job on the promise-keeping, Dad, really; keep it up). There are a few Jupiter legacies, though. My friend Bobby is a Jupiter legacy, a great-great-great-grandson or something. He calls me "Uncle Jason" if he wants something.

The only other thing that's weird about me is that I got to camp when I was three. Most people come when they're twelve. I don't remember much about it. My mother took me to Lupa, the wolf goddess. She promised she'd come back - my mother, not Lupa - but she didn't. I guess I must have thought I'd find her at camp, because Corey John, the legionnaire who was on guard duty the night I came in, said I started howling like a wolf when he told me that she wasn't waiting for me. My mom's promise-keeping skills are right up there with my dad's, apparently. I make a point of keeping every promise. Maybe I can make up for some of their broken ones.

I believed a lot of weird things when I was little. Mom was coming for me. My big sister was also a demigod child of Jupiter. According to Corey, I even told him that I'd flown partway from the Wolf House. He said I must have accidentally eaten a funny mushroom, or maybe watched too many cartoons.

I was kind of a mascot for a long time. People in New Rome wanted to adopt me when they found out I was a son of Jupiter, but the Augur, Heather Lacroix, told them that I was to grow up in the legion. I've always been glad of that. Other kids tend to forget about the Jupiter thing after a while. Grown-ups _never_ forget about it. If someone had adopted me because I was Jupiter's kid, I'd probably have gotten as spoiled as the rich legacy kids who live in the best parts of New Rome. Maybe _more_ spoiled. I mean, it's one thing to have parents who give you self-esteem boosts, but can you imagine having parents who, like, worship you?

(And no, don't pretend it would be fun. I promise: Not fun.)

Anyway, I think I lived with a praetor at first, until I had my first act of valor. I don't remember doing it, because I was four, but it was for one of our _lars_ , our house spirits. This one's a little boy named Gratius Porcius. I have no idea how he became a ghost, because they never tell, but however it was, he died with his dog, and the dog runs around with him. Apparently, the ghost dog was chasing a ghost cat when it ran into a real dog. The dog barked and tried to attack, and I jumped on it and stopped it. (I wasn't very bright at four, as you may have guessed.) I'm pretty sure it was a joke to call it my act of valor, but as I was living in the army anyway, they must have decided it would count as my entrance.

Then they burned marks on my arm. _That_ I remember. The first time the magical fire hits your arm and burns in your family symbol and your year count? That's memorable. And painful. I got to pick where to stay. I picked the Fifth Cohort, mostly because everyone else was begging for me and even then I knew it was the whole Jupiter's-kid thing that made them want me. The Fifth had nice people, and no one expected them to be… well, children of the king of the gods. Maybe that's more sophisticated than I was really thinking. My co-centurion, Gwen, certainly thinks so. But I'm pretty sure that's exactly where my head was.

Even after I started living in the Fifth, I was mostly just a good luck charm. They'd mess up my hair before war games and put me in the littlest armor, then have me stand around on the sidelines. The other cohorts in the games would pet me, too. It's not a bad way to be a little kid, surrounded by big kids who think you're the best thing ever. Once a year, they'd let me accomplish some little task, so I could get my stripe, and I thought it was just great.

When I turned nine, they had a party for me, then started putting me in regular cohort jobs, and that's when I got normal. I sweep the stables and do pots and pans (when I can get the wind spirits to let me) and have to keep my grades up to keep my standing, just like everyone else. Most people treat me that way. Some are still too easy on me because they're afraid of my father, for some reason. It's not like he drops by and threatens anyone, but I guess they think he might. Some people don't like that much.

Anyway, back to my wish.

I was clearing out basilisk nests in the temple of Pomona on the first day of September with my friend (and great-great-great-great-grandnephew), Bobby Botolph. The Fifth usually got stuck with basilisk clearing duties, which was about as dangerous a task as you could get without actually having any glamor attached to it. The things breathed fire and dripped poison. If they got out in the open, they were really hard to kill, because they were fast and deadly. But as fall came, they always sought out the warm spots under the temples, and in there, it wasn't _too_ hard to get them. You just had to push them back into a corner. If the monster class teachers wanted some, you had to hook them and box them, but that time, we were strictly on monster-dusting run. The Ludi Romani would start in four days, and the city elders and the Senate were determined to have no more basilisk-related deaths during the games.

I didn't mind. I've always liked the temples, and Pomona's is one of my favorites. Aside from the sacrifices to her, there's always a shared table of fresh fruit for anyone who's hungry, or who just wants to appreciate abundance. It's like fruit-Thanksgiving all autumn long. It always smells good, too. A group of old city women was sitting there when we got in, playing canasta and gossiping. They fussed over us for a few minutes before we started, but were ignoring us by the time we really got into it.

"This'll be our big one for sure, Unc," Bobby said, blowing fire back at a nest under the cornerstone. "I can see it now. I bet it's written on the floor in Gramp's temple. Two descendants of the king of the gods kill temple worms."

I didn't answer, not really. The floor and walls of my father's temple were covered with old prophecies. I doubt anyone knew all of them. But supposedly, if you were destined to do anything important, you'd find it written there somewhere. "Want to look around for one later?"

He shrugged and scooted backward out of the dark corner. "Nah. It never works if you _try_ to make them come true. Remember Michael Varus." He rolled his eyes. Michael Varus had tried to fill a prophecy a couple of decades ago and ended up losing most of the Fifth Cohort, which was why we had such a great snake-clearing detail today.

"I saw one the other day about Furies," I tried as we headed for the next usual hidey-hole, a broken stone at the base of the temple, near the stairs. "At least I think it was Furies."

We got to the stairs, and Bobby gave me the monster-hunting bag, which was full of useful things like fire arrows and Imperial Gold infused nets and matches and duct tape and a big can of Raid. We didn't have to talk about working. We'd been working together long enough to know the rhythm. I crouched down and stuck a flashlight under the stairs. There was only one snake, but it was big. I fumbled around for an old, bent piece of sharp Imperial Gold that was no good for anything else and jabbed it down. The basilisk didn't have anywhere to go, and it just crumbled into dust and went back to the underworld. It would probably be back by spring. The little buggers were fast turnarounds.

"You can't beat the Furies," Bobby said. "It's like fighting fate."

We went up the stairs and into the main part of the temple. The old women had stopped playing cards, and were now chatting with a new woman who'd come in. She wasn't dressed Roman style, so I guessed she lived or at least worked on the outside. They made some general cooing noises in our direction when they saw us, but otherwise left us to our work. We didn't talk. It seemed rude to interrupt them.

"A sea monster?" one of them said, eyes wide. "Really? Or is it just another of Cha's vapors?"

Another one laughed. "Do you remember… it must have been '67, down in Haight-Ashbury. He was going through _that_ phase, anyway. He decided that the Greeks had infiltrated the government - "

The others cracked up, the way they always did when they talked about the sixties. I can't even imagine this place then. "I remember!" one said, then dropped her voice to an imitation of a man with some kind of southern accent. "'It ain't the Man, my man. Not anymore. It's the _Andros_ , brother. The _Andros_ is running the show, and they think no one knows it.'"

They laughed again, and the newcomer said, "And the faun conspiracy!"

"Oh, that's right - "

" - they were going to - "

" - no, they were pretending to be - "

" - and they were really Lords of the Wild, remember? And he - "

" - he kept trying to talk to them and join the quest!"

Bobby and I looked at each other and grinned. I wondered what stories we'd be telling each other in here in forty years.

"So, anyway," the newcomer said when the laughing calmed down. "Now, it's a sea monster. Neptune sent it to block off Winchester Bay just like he did with Troy."

"Right. Because that's a very strategic target. And what does he think he did to annoy Neptune?"

"Oyster farming. He thinks it's against the will of the gods."

"Of course. And he's come to this conclusion because…?"

"On the oysters? No idea. But he saw a tentacle out in the water, and there _have_ been a few ships going down. The oceans have been a little testy lately."

The women were quiet for minute, because the oceans weren't the only part of nature that had gotten testy. There'd been a storm out on Mount Tam for a week that the mortals couldn't see. The Senate had been debating sending a team. I offered the Fifth, but they practically laughed me out of the building. Making me a centurion didn't always stop them from treating me like the camp pet.

"Well, that's Cha," one of them said fondly. (She pronounced the name like "Chad," but without a "d.") "Wherever he happens to be is the center of the conspiracy."

They gave a quieter, fonder laugh, then someone brought up their book club, which was reading _The Deep End of the Ocean_ , and the conversation drifted to that. It didn't sound like my kind of book.

Bobby and I finished searching the altar for basilisks (for a wonder, there was only one), then headed out into the afternoon. He was unusually quiet. We were almost to the barracks when he said, "I wonder if there really is a sea monster."

I shrugged. "Hundreds, most likely."

"They said it was like Troy. The Trojan Sea Monster was pretty hardcore. I don't remember how it got beaten, but I think there were sacrifices and stuff. Could be serious, Oh Great Centurion." He smiled and raised his eyebrows.

As a centurion, I was required to hem and haw a little bit and talk my soldiers down from silly ideas, but I knew where he was going. A quest. Now that I was a centurion, I could lead one. I could even bring up the idea for one. The Senate would think we were crazy, if the women thought their old friend was, and maybe they'd turn out to be right. Maybe they'd think it was silly enough that it would be cute to let little Jason go questing.

But maybe, just maybe, we could slay a sea serpent and save a town called Winchester Bay.

Okay, I know I already said - kind of - that this was a bad idea, but let me repeat myself: This was a _really bad idea_.

So, being the son of such a responsible and never-erring god as Jupiter, I had to do it.

"I bet they let us go," I said. "We'll get an augury! If the augurs say we can go, we can. The Senate won't argue with an augury."

"That's some Jovian thinking right there," Bobby said. "Come on, Unc. Let's quest!"

And that was all the thinking that went into it. I overheard gossip and decided to have an adventure, because my best friend (and great-grand-nephew of some kind) looked like he was up for it, and it sounded fun.

Come on, I was thirteen. What do you want?

We turned away from the barracks and ran up the hill toward the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus - otherwise known as "Dad" or "Gramps" - and wove through the crowds to the market booths set up out front for Ludi Romani. Some sold sweet drinks and snacks. Others had midway games. But the ones closest to the temple sold sacrifices.

Not animal sacrifices. That would be gross, and someone put a stop to that back in the Middle Ages. But a Roman temple is a Roman temple - you can always buy something to sacrifice to the gods. There are fancy shops for adults lining the promenade, where you buy jewels in bags, which the augur tears open and spills. There are booths were you can buy bags of old guts from the butcher shop to spill on the altar, but, like I said: Gross. You can even buy Augur-puffs, which are little bags made from Fruit Roll-ups. They come with a toy dagger. You stab them and spill out little chunks of cherry gummies shaped like guts, and in the middle of them is a little marble that says "Yes" or "No" to your question. It's kind of like a tiny, really violent piñata crossed with a Magic 8 Ball.

But the ones most of the kids at Camp Jupiter used were the toy booths, where stuffed animals were lined up along the shelves, waiting for the slaughter. I'm pretty sure someone Frankensteined them back together afterward and resold them, but we all pretended not to know.

Bobby and I didn't pick the cheapest one. Cheap sacrifices get bad auguries. The best ones are ones you own and value, but really, I don't own much an augur could use that I especially value. I own some things, but none of them have guts that can be strewn out and read. Between the two of us, we were able to scrounge up ten denarii, which was enough for the mid-range toy booth near the stairs. The stuffed animals and dolls were hung from hooks, making it look like a carnival booth. (In fact, during the games, some of the sacrifice booths have pitch-'til-you-win augury sacrifices.)

"What do you think?" Bobby asked, turning over a stuffed truck.

I shook my head. "Do you care about trucks?"

"No. Oh, but hey, my Dad has one. If we can get Dakota on the quest, Dad would let us borrow it."

"Dakota?"

"He got his license."

"Oh." I looked at a few teddy bears, a stuffed koala, and a dinosaur. There was a stuffed Spider-man that I gave serious thought to. But in the end, I kept coming back to a stuffed octopus wearing a pirate hat, with a crooked eyepatch over one eye.

"This looks good for a sea monster quest," I said.

Bobby took it and shrugged. "Aye, captain. I believe we've got ourselves a sacrifice!"

I took our money up to the counter and bought the octopus, then Bobby and I went up the steps to the temple. There was a long, winding line, and the senior augur was apparently giving people detailed advice, since it didn't seem to be moving. We ended up behind a bunch of guys from the college who wanted an augury about where to go for winter break. They were apparently sacrificing a wineskin for this.

Bobby named our sacrifice Captain Carbuncle, and made up a long and tragic story about how he ended up trapped on land, never allowed to go back to his native seas because he angered the wrong gods. I mostly ignored him, even when he put the octopus on his head like a hat.

After about half an hour of this, the great door opened and one of the Vestals came out. She was a plain girl dressed in plain brown robes. She used to be in the Third Cohort before she took her vows, but I didn't remember her name.

"The apprentice augur is willing to see pilgrims," she announced. "And his master approves, provided the questions don't require extensive advice."

Most people didn't exactly jump at this. I wasn't even sure who the apprentice augur _was_. I looked at Bobby.

He shrugged. "We just need a yea or nay. No advice."

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Really. It did.

We followed the Vestal to the door and down a set of old marble stairs, lit by torchlight. The temple basement wasn't as grand as the upper structure. There were a lot of boxes piled up, and there was a pathetic little rec room where little kids would come during summer Myth School to make macaroni necklaces with the names of the Olympians on them. The Vestal pointed toward it and gave us an apologetic little smile, as if to say, _What do you expect if you're willing to see a 'prentice?_

"Who's on this, anyway?" Bobby asked.

"No idea."

"It's usually an Apollo legacy. Prophecy. Sometimes one of his half-bloods. Are there are any that are the right age?"

"There are _always_ Apollo kids," I said. "I think Apollo missed some of his health classes."

The door was ajar, and inside, to my surprise, we heard two soft voices. Both guys, from the sound of it. I couldn't make out what they were saying, but one voice was smooth and light and easy to listen to, like some half-baked movie star or boy band guy that all the girls would swoon over. The other one was…

"Aw, no," Bobby said. "No, no way."

My heart sank. I'm not hard to get along with. I don't find other people hard to get along with. But if the second voice belonged to who I thought it did, I decided it might be time to go upstairs and wait for the real augur.

The Vestal was still in the hallway, drifting around. I didn't want to have to explain myself to her.

I sighed and went inside.

The boy standing there was alone. Whoever he was talking to must have left through another door. He was skinny and pimply, and he had lanky blond hair that fell like a curtain over his eyes. He wore a toga over khakis and an Oxford shirt, and on his feet were a pair of very expensive loafers. He'd turned one of the plastic craft tables into an altar, with basins to catch the falling stuffing, and a small statue of Jupiter set on a box of tempura paints. A painting of Apollo was propped up behind him, and he had positioned himself carefully so that his head was at the same level, so that, if we came around to face him head on - which he'd definitely make us do - the sacred aura around Apollo's head would be transferred to him.

"Ah!" he said. "I see the girl was able to bring visitors. Jason… Grant, is it?"

"Grace," I corrected. He knew that well enough. "Centurion of the Fifth. Hey, Octavian."

"Oh, yes, of course," he said, giving a broad, fake smile. "I've got my new assignment, as you can see, though I remain a member of the First Cohort!" The smile broadened even more, making Octavian look like a lizard. "I suppose you're still on basilisk duty at the Fifth. It's a shame, really."

I clenched my teeth. Octavian was an Apollo legacy, descended several generations down from a half-blood. He bragged about how many years his family had been in New Rome, and how many people he knew. He's the only person I know of who sneers at half-bloods. After all, most of us didn't exactly pal around with our godly parents, and in the mortal world, we simply didn't know anyone who _was_ anyone, by Octavian's standards.

"That's actually what we're here about," Bobby said. "The uncle and I heard about a quest for a sea monster. We need an augury."

"Did you bring letters of recommendation?" Octavian asked.

"No," I said. "I'm a centurion, and I want an augury about a monster threatening the sea coast. That doesn't need letters." _And you know it_ , I wanted to add, but didn't. _You know it, and you just want to take the time to remind me how much more connected you are._

"We'll get the letters before the senate meets," Bobby promised and gave Octavian a smile. Bobby's family had been around as long as Octavian's, but he never pulled rank over it. "For now, I brought you this fine sacrifice." He held up the stuffed octopus.

"What sort of quest is this to be?" Octavian asked solicitously. "Something of a dangerous nature?"

"Something that might be nothing," I told him. "It might even end up embarrassing me that I ever asked." I smiled.

He had to know I was playing him, but he didn't respond. His eyes just lit up at the prospect of an embarrassing quest for the Fifth.

I took Captain Carbuncle from Bobby and thrust him at Octavian. "Here. We just need a yes or no."

"I can tell you whether the omens are favorable or not…" He picked up his ceremonial dagger and shook his head. "Well, then," he said, holding the octopus upside down by the tip of one tentacle, "let's see what's in store for you."


	2. The Apprentice Gets A Shock

**TWO:  
The Apprentice Gets A Shock**

Octavian's dagger moved quickly, and I got the feeling he was imagining a live octopus, about to pour ink over his altar. He even jumped back a bit, as if to avoid the spurting blood.

Of course, synthetic stuffing doesn't exactly spurt out of a stuffed animal. Captain Carbuncle's side split open, and some fluffy white stuff sprang out in a little puff, but Octavian had to physically turn him inside out and yank out the guts to "pour" onto the altar. He dug around to get the insides of the tentacles while he was at it, and laid it all out so it looked like a puffy white spider. The pelt, he threw to one side, disinterested.

"Ah, yes," he said, surveying the wreckage in front of him. "I see a knot… a clump in the region of the specimen's brain… And, oh, yes, I see its feet are quite small."

"It's an octopus," I said. "They come to a point, but actually, you could think of the whole tentacle as a foot. I mean, that's the Latin, eight-footed."

Octavian gave me an annoyed look. "Thank you for the advice. I'm sure I could repay it with some hints about swabbing latrines, as soon as I talk to some of the junior officers about it."

I bit by tongue to keep from giving a retort, and stepped on Bobby's foot to keep him from doing the same. It didn't matter. All we had to do with Octavian was get past him, and if we couldn't even manage that, we didn't deserve a quest for something harder.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm just interested in what you're seeing."

He considered this, then decided to take it as a compliment. "Very well," he said. "When we used real animals, we were able to compare and contrast the organs, particularly the liver, with well-known augurs' charts. When we moved up to the synthetic form, we began to depend more on the augur's vision of how the gods were using the replacement material. We had to combine the augury with other omens at first to see if we were on the right track, but we've developed a much more stable mode of reading the auguries now. A knot in the stuffing, like this one, which came from near the center of the animal, is a common sign and means very little. Had it occurred in the feet, I would certainly refuse your quest, since it would imply a directive to stay put. The clump in the region of what would be brain suggests that little thought has gone into this, and the small feet suggest the triviality of your request."

"Oh," I said. "Then you won't recommend it?"

He swept the octopus innards into a bag. "I hardly think the matter of an old paranoid's fantasies needs the attention of an augur" - I started to protest, but Octavian held up his hand - "nevertheless, there are no _bad_ omens, so I won't stand in your way when the Senate inevitably goes along with your nonsense, like they always do."

"Like they…"

He leaned over the altar. "You don't think you're a centurion because you _deserve_ it, do you? What have you ever really done? You rescued a ghost and they made you a legionnaire."

"I had seniority when they made me centurion."

"None of the things you did should have kept you in good standing in the legion. All they care about is that you're Jupiter's son. Frankly, I _don't_ care."

He reached out to grab my arm.

I didn't shock him on purpose, and I think the thunder that suddenly rolled overhead was just a coincidence. It's always thundering in the main temple.

But as soon as he touched me, an arc of electricity jumped from my arm and up his hand, making his jaws snap tight.

He shoved me away.

Bobby jumped in between us. "Hey! Chill out, Octavian!"

Octavian, who was fuming a few feet away, didn't take that well. "Me? I'm not the one who resorted to a mystical _attack!_ I was going to go along with this, to let you have your little vacation - and let's not pretend it was anything else - but if you're going to start calling in favors from Daddy - "

The next blast of thunder wasn't coincidental. It crashed overhead like celestial cymbals in a marching band that happened to be passing over the roof. I heard screaming upstairs, and the pounding of marble falling. A red light flashed above the door and the speakers let out the whining tone of the emergency alarm, which only sounded for fires, earthquakes, and divine temper tantrums.

The Vestal girl ran back and said, "Evacuate!" so we dropped our argument and followed her. One thing about living in the legion: you learn to follow orders. (In my leadership classes as a new centurion, you learn not to give frivolous orders; that helps.) We ran up the dank hallway and up the marble stairs. The crowd in the lobby was rushing outside, and the Augur, Emily Yazzie, was lashing down the freestanding statuary in case of further disturbance. There was a hole in the corner of the roof, and a spill of marble and gold below it.

Emily glanced up and spotted us, and seemed to understand at a glance that something we'd done was the cause of it. A son of Jupiter, a Jupiter legacy, an antagonistic apprentice augur… it was probably not a hard guess. She stormed over to us as the last of the pilgrims were shooed out.

"What happened?" she demanded. She was in her mid-twenties, nearly done with her sworn service. Despite being less than five feet tall, barefoot, and carrying a slain teddy bear in one hand, she was pretty intimidating.

Octavian looked like a small, mean animal in a trap, and I realized that this new apprenticeship might be more fragile than it seemed. "Well, I was reading an augury, that's all. And… well…"

"And we got into a disagreement," I said. "I tried to tell Octavian how to read his auguries. I'm sorry. I suppose… it may have looked bad." I looked up through the broken roof. "Lord Jupiter, my Father, it was my fault."

The thunder grumbled. So did Octavian. If my father cared what I thought, there was no sign of it.

Emily sighed. "Boys, will someone tell me _exactly_ what happened?"

We told her, while the Vestal Virgins scurried around and cleaned up what they could. Emily told them to leave the rubble pile in the corner for later; she would see if it had any omens in it.

At the end, she sighed. "Well, begging for a quest is somewhat… _frowned upon_ ," she said. "But let me have a look at the augury."

"I was fair in the augury," Octavian muttered. "I always read it the way it is."

"I didn't say you didn't. But with a few new major omens added, I'd like to see it in full context."

So we went back downstairs. Emily looked with distaste at the portrait of Apollo behind an altar to Jupiter - dwarfing it - but said nothing about it, at least not in front of me. She bent over the stuffing, then looked at her apprentice. "What was your reading?"

I waited for him to lie, but he didn't. "I said there were no bad omens, but the quest looked trivial." He pointed at the feet.

"I'd have read it that way, too, without the lightning strike. Given that, I think we should bring it to the Senate. Maybe there's something to it, or maybe the gods want Jason to gain experience with a quest."

"I was going to take it to the Senate," Octavian said morosely.

"I'm sure you were." Emily sighed again. "Go upstairs to my study. We'll talk about this later."

He turned to go up, but looked over his shoulder at me. "That's not all I see about you, Son of Jupiter."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

" _Octavian_ ," Emily scolded. "Go upstairs now." She waited for him to reach the stairs, where a Vestal met him and accompanied him, then turned back to us. "There are a dozen ways to read every sign," she said. "Octavian can read seven or eight easily. He's a decent Augur in the making. What happened?"

"He was goading Jason," Bobby said.

I held up a hand. "We just don't get along."

She nodded. "Did you call down the lightning?"

The question took me entirely by surprise. "What?"

"It's a fair question. Did you call the lightning to make a better omen?"

"I didn't! I can't!"

"I was here when you came in Jason Grace. You have powers you don't let us see very often."

"Yeah," Bobby said. "The B.O. bombs he drops in the barracks leave everyone running for cover."

Emily ignored this. "Maybe you don't remember them, but I've seen the omens. The Augur I apprenticed to - Heather? - spotted a prophecy on the wall that talked about the prince of the air. She remembered what you said about flying."

"I wasn't even four," I said. "I imagined it. And I never called lightning."

"A car was hit on the road only a mile up from where you were wandering. That's why the road was clear enough for you to be walking down the center line when Corey found you."

I felt like she was calling me a liar, like she thought I was sneaking around making godly things happen without telling anyone about it, so they'd be afraid of my father. I felt a deep flush in my face. I wouldn't do that. I don't have powers like that, and if I did, it would be selfish to hide them.

She looked at me shrewdly. "Never mind. I'll put you on the agenda for Friday's senate meeting. I suggest you put together a quest proposal - transportation, weapons you'll need, things like that. Also, your two companions. I need to speak to Octavian now. Please let yourselves out."

She headed out.

Bobby grinned. "We should tell her about all our special Jovian talents. It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Super-Jason!"

"Shut up," I said.

"Me, I inherited his talent with the ladies. So far, no luck with the turning into gold and pouring down into a shower room trick - they get all weird about that - but, you know. I've got moves."

I smiled. "Yeah, I like that move you have where you trip over your shoelaces and stammer around Kate Czajkowski."

"It's a stealth move."

"Uh-huh."

"Where do you think that prophecy is? The one Emily's mentor saw?"

"I don't know. Could be anywhere." I pointed at the walls of the crafts room, where half the blocks were cracked old things from ancient temples, many of them covered with crumbling prophecies, most of which had probably been fulfilled for years.

"Well, I want to find it. For all we know, it's about me."

"Probably is."

"Don't you want a prophecy? I adopted ten of them when I was little. I wanted the one with the seven, in the big floor. And that one about a half-blood of the eldest gods. Though I guess I'm not quite half, am I?"

"Who knows how that works?" I asked. "It's not like normal DNA. Maybe it overwrites a whole family."

"You think so?"

"What do I know?" Supposedly, gods don't have DNA at all, which never made sense to me, because a human functioning on half a strand of DNA would be pretty messy. And besides, if the god didn't have anything to contribute, then we'd all be clones of our mortal parents. I'm pretty sure I'm not. I think there's something like DNA, and they just make a huge deal of it so we don't feel embarrassed about dating inside the Olympian family, because it's _not_ the same as a human family.

"Jason?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. I don't feel like reading the walls right now."

"Okay."

We went upstairs. There was a small group of people around the hole in the roof, looking at the pile of rubble. Apparently, Emily's important conversation with Octavian could wait, because she was crouching on the far side of the group, staring intently at something in her hand.

"What is it?" Bobby asked.

"I don't know. If it's important, we'll hear about it." I started toward the front exit.

"Wait!" Emily called. "Jason… I have something for you."

I glanced over at Bobby, who gave me an elaborate shrug, then went back to Emily.

She stood up and came forward, weaving through the group of temple staffers who'd gathered for clean-up. She was holding something small in her hand. As she got closer, I could see that it was an old Roman coin. The city was lousy with them. A lot of the materials we used to build New Rome came over magically from old Rome, and if we made a fuss every time we found real denarii, we'd spend all day every day making fuss.

"I think this is yours," she said.

I took it. It was shinier than most of the old coins I'd seen. There was a picture of Julius Caesar on one side. On the other, his name was written in Latin: IVLIVS.

"Why?" I asked.

"I think it was hidden in the join of the ceiling. I don't know how long it was there. But Jupiter chose to dislodge it the day you came looking for your first quest. It must mean something."

I looked at it more closely. It wasn't just shinier. It was less dented, less… I frowned. "Is this _Imperial_ gold?"

"I think so."

"Then it should go into the armory. It can be melted for an arrowhead or something, to kill monsters. I can't -"

"I'm telling you as the Augur of Camp Jupiter: This belongs to you. I don't know what it's for, but if anyone tries to take it, send them to me. It's yours."

I didn't have any idea what I was supposed to do with a single coin made out of Imperial Gold, but I took it and thanked Emily. I pocketed it.

"A gift from your dad?" Bobby asked. "He never gives me anything. King-of-the-Gods' pet."

"What's it supposed to be for? Tickets to the hippodrome?"

"It's probably magical. Sometimes, the gods give people magical items. Octavian's great-grandmother - daughter of Apollo? - had a necklace that turned into a harp. She was friends with my great-grandfather. They used to quest together. Grandpa Great told me stories."

I look at the coin. Ivlivs. I know, it's really Julius, and I can read Latin just fine, but sue me. I called it Ivlivs in my head that day, and I would call it that for a long time after this story ends.

Bobby and I made our way back to the barracks. He headed off for the baths, but I decided not to go. Everyone would be there in the middle of the afternoon, and they'd want to know about the lightning. Also, they'd probably be dunking and splashing, and, while I can swim if I need to, the truth is I don't like the water all that much. It always feels a little hostile. So I stayed back on my own, enjoying having the barracks to myself for a few minutes.

The barracks weren't anything special. Every ten-bunk room looked like every other ten bunk room. I didn't get any special centurion perks, either, other than my rank insignia and the duty roster that hung by my bed so I could make assignments based on the tasks that the praetors gave the Fifth Cohort. Growing up in the barracks, I never did accumulate much stuff. What I did own was in my footlocker.

We were allowed to decorate the footlockers a little bit, and people took advantage of it. Bobby's was covered with stickers and memorabilia from the 49ers. This was a minor scrimmage with Lucie Donegal (daughter of Venus), who wanted the be a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader after she finished her stint in the legion. ("It would be a great place to hunt monsters!" she burbled sometimes. "I could be Buffy! And I bet anything monsters hang out in stadiums.") Dakota, an older boy who was passed over when I became centurion, had a picture of the Kool-Aid jug, and he'd cleverly painted around it so it looked like it really was breaking out of the side of his footlocker.

My own was pretty sparse that year. It had the marks of old stickers that I'd peeled off as I outgrew them, though an almost completely faded Barney the Dinosaur remained hidden on the back. My barracks-mates had made him say things the whole time I was little and learning to read, and I was pretty fond of him for that. No one made a fuss about it, though sometimes, one of them would sneak in and paste a dialogue balloon of him telling a dirty joke. Now, it had things other people had given me. Lucie had given me a picture of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (she was determined that we should all patrol the camp for monsters every night), which was on the front. There was a picture from the New Rome Register showing me when I became centurion, and a cartoon from the same paper. It was a running one called "Legionnaire's Dis-Ease," about the annoyances of life in the military. This one showed a junior officer ordered by his clueless senior officers to build fortifications out of office supplies. I don't remember why I clipped it, exactly.

I unlocked the footlocker and lifted the lid. Inside, I kept my private possessions. If I ever got spoils of war, they'd go in there, but at the moment, it had an old stuffed wolf (Octavian would not get without six feet of it), a random collection of pocketknives, and a shoebox that held the tiny clothes I'd been wearing when I arrived. I didn't need to open that anymore, and almost never did. I knew what was there. A pair of worn out little sneakers with red and blue shoelaces. Denim shorts that were barely bigger than my hands. A little tag with my name on it, "Jason Grace, son of Jupiter." That had been pinned to the inside of a little sweatshirt jacket. It was all good-quality, expensive stuff. The only cheap thing was the tee shirt, which was also the only really important thing. In itself, it wasn't. It was just a white tee with a picture of the Disney version of Hercules. But someone had written across it in permanent marker: "DEATH TO DISNEY PRINCESSES."

I couldn't write until I was six. It wasn't the sort of thing that an adult would write.

My sister wrote it.

She exists. She's not a figment of my imagination, because she wrote on the shirt.

She's probably not Jupiter's kid. I mean, that would be weird. Especially with my father's promise. Would he have really broken it twice with the same person? That wouldn't have made sense. But she's out there, somewhere. Maybe still with our mother. If I close my eyes, I can almost see her. She was a giant next to me. She must have been a lot older. A flash of blue eyes just like mine. Black hair, almost the opposite of mine. Sometimes, the flash of a sharp smile, then warm hands on my head, messing up my hair, and a voice saying, "Who's got Jason? Who's got Jason?" Then swinging through the air, higher, lighter than it's possible to be, and…

I shook my head. My hand was on the box, and I was about to open it, which was a pointless thing to do.

Instead, I put Ivlivs in the little pocket on top, where the small things went so they wouldn't get lost. I decided to have another look at it later.

The door opened and Dakota came in. He was drinking double-sweet Kool-Aid from a giant water bottle. I didn't know how he could stand the stuff, but his mouth was always red from it, and he was on a constant sugar-high. He used up the extra sugar with all the exercise he got, but sooner or later, I figured he'd look like the pitcher on the side of his footlocker, if he didn't cut back.

Other than the bug juice, though, he was a good guy. He didn't resent getting passed over for centurion - "You've been here longest!" he said, "and I'd probably forget to assign anyone to anything, anyway" - and he didn't treat me like I was a cute kid assigned too young to the post, which my co-centurion, Gwen, tended to do.

"You're doing a quest?" he asked.

"How do you know?"

"It's all over camp. Lightning from the Big Guy, Octavian getting chewed out about it. Wish I'd been there."

"It was just a lightning strike." I sat up. "Bobby said you got your license."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet (spilling a rolled-up bag of Kool-Aid at the same time). It dropped open to the ID window, where I could see him smiling out at me, looking quite deranged, from his California driver's license. "I'm street legal."

"Good. Bobby's dad might have a truck. If he does, you want to quest with us?"

He stopped. "Me?"

"Well, I can't drive."

"I don't know, Jason. I mean, I can drive you where you need to go, but… come on. Me, on a quest? I'm a son of Bacchus, man. Unless the quest is for party supplies, I don't know what else you think I can do. Unless you want me to grow some grapes."

"Being a good soldier isn't about superpowers. And you're good in the war games."

"We lose every time."

"Yeah, but that's not _your_ fault."

He sat down and thought about it. "A quest, huh? And they'd let everybody be from the Fifth?"

"They let quest leaders pick whoever they want. And they think it's a nothing quest, anyway."

"Is it?"

I shrugged. "No idea 'til we get there."

He looked at me for a minute, then said, "Sure. I'm in. If they let us go."

"Good."

There was nothing else to say, and living in an open room with nine other people teaches you pretty early to let conversations go when they end. It's not like you can wait for someone to leave.

I leaned back on my bunk and started reading my homework assignment. It was by George Orwell, another descendent of Apollo. _Animal Farm_ , otherwise known as, "Thank the gods, it's the short one." A lot of demigods had problems reading. Dyslexia runs in the Olympian family, apparently. I didn't have nearly as much trouble as some of the others, but every now and then, letters would start floating away, and it would slow me down. I got out a pencil and carefully underlined anything that seemed important.

The trumpet sounded for dinner an hour later, just as I was getting to the plot by the human farmers to take back Animal Farm from its new leaders, and I put it away.

Most of the other soldiers from the Fifth were heading back, and I joined the general throng on the way to the mess hall. Columns of soldiers from the other cohorts were wending their way down as well. I could already smell the food.

I realized I still had my pencil in my hand. I'd carried it out absently. It was down to a little nub, and I shoved it into my pocket.

My hand brushed against something metal.

I stopped.

"What is it?" Dakota asked.

"It's…" I drew out a bright, Imperial Gold coin. Julius Caesar frowned impressively at me from the side that met my eyes.

I shook my head, confused. I had left Ivlivs back in the footlocker. I was sure of it.

But it had come back to me.


	3. I Flip A Coin

**THREE:  
I Flip A Coin**

The Senate would meet in four days. There was nothing to be done about that; it wasn't like I was calling for an emergency quest. As far as they were concerned, it was somewhere along the line of Lucie's monster patrols. Probably harmless, but nothing they were going to get gray hair over, either.

I spent my time doing normal things. I went to school. I failed a spelling test pretty spectacularly, but did pretty well in history. We played defense on war games, partnering with the Third Cohort. The First, Second, and Fourth took our banners and spray painted them so that the Fifth's read "Vermin" and the Third's read "I-i-idiots!" Our praetors were from the First and Second (Jonah Song and Nick Dubois, respectively), and they gave their admonishment for this while trying not to laugh… and not succeeding.

When I wasn't on duty, I went into the archives and looked up what I could on sea monsters, Winchester Bay, and the reporting legion veteran. Charles "Cha" Brown, a son of Deverra (a minor goddess who was, as far as I could tell, in charge of childbirth and, weirdly, brooms) was always flighty, and probably wouldn't be my strongest case. I asked permission to call him and get the details, and by the time he was finished talking, even I didn't believe him, though I didn't tell him so. "You get them to send someone," he said. "You do what it takes, centurion. Because this is a Greek plot. I'm telling you that right now."

My head ached by the time I hung up, and I imagined myself actually going to the Senate with this theory. There _were_ people who believed there were still Greek demigods out there, always plotting to overthrow us, like they did in ancient times. The people who believed that were generally considered lunatics, on par with the faun who sometimes went begging through the square, preaching about how Tartarus was stirring and the monsters were about to come back. (That the monsters never left - you can't walk a block in New Rome without seeing some kind of monster - affected this prophecy not at all.)

But the meeting had already been called. I'd have to be ready. I made arrangements with Bobby's dad to use his old farm truck. It was the first time I'd met him. He was a nice guy, legacy of a minor farming god (it was Bobby's mother who was descended from Jupiter) and as soon as I promised that we'd have a licensed driver at the wheel, he was willing to let us take the truck. "If you get in a pinch," he told me, "Bobby does know how to drive it, but he'll get pulled over pretty fast if a cop spots you."

Money for gas would have to be arranged with the Senate, unless Cha Brown wanted to front us some. Those of us in the legion did get paid a little bit, but accessing our money was a nightmare. I didn't even know how much I had, other than one ancient gold aureus.

Speaking of which, I found myself returning to the coin over and over again while I waited. It always ended up in the pocket of whatever I was wearing. If I wasn't wearing something with pockets, it found the closest clothes that did have them. Once, just as an experiment, I wore pocket-less sweatpants down to the baths, swam around in the usual Roman bathing attire - nothing at all - and then put on one of the loaner terrycloth bathrobes while I went looking for a legion barber to get my hair in shape. Sure enough, by the time the clippers came out, the coin was in the robe's pocket.

I couldn't figure anything out about it. Caesar on one side. A Gaul battle axe on the other. The word IVLIVS. I tried rolling it across paper to see if it would cut. No dice, which was probably just as well if it was going to show up in my pocket all the time. I tried using it to hit things with. It was no different than any other coin. A little bit of a ping, and that was it. I tossed it at a dartboard once, but I didn't even make it into the target. The coin just rolled away.

"Maybe you're supposed to use it to buy something," my co-centurion, Gwen, suggested when I showed it to her. "Maybe there's some shop that only takes aurei, and they have something you need."

"Maybe, but where?"

"You should go back to the temple. Maybe there's a map."

There was no map at the temple. Emily even helped me look. She checked the index cards where the carved prophecies were recorded.

"Coins," she muttered. "We've got some coin ones, but nothing seems right." She pulled one out and read, "'A silver coin in golden purse, shall unleash the shadow's curse…'" She wrinkled her nose and stuck the card back in the box. "Your problem child is a gold coin, and there was no purse. No purse, no curse."

I looked at a few in my hand. "'She shall not speak through rainbow's coin, to the child of Mercury's loin…'"

Emily took it from me and refiled it with a roll of the eyes. "No rainbow tricks, so I think we can avoid Mercury's loins."

"That's… good."

"Generally speaking, yes." She shook her head over a few more. "I don't see anything relevant, Jason, I'm sorry. If you have something you'd like me to read an augury on…"

"No, thanks, Em. I appreciate the time."

"Well, let me know if anything comes up."

I promised, but with the Senate meeting the next morning, I doubted I'd have much time to devote to Ivlivs.

We had another war game that night. The Fifth was teamed on offense with the First and Second, so our team won, but they threw us at the barricades right off and none of us made it through to the actual capture of the banners. I went to bed tired and sore from a duel at the gate with one of the big kids from the Third.

I found myself in a dream.

This was normal enough. Most people in two or three generations of one of the gods - half-bloods most of all - get seriously weird dreams from time to time, none of them figments of imagination. I've dreamed about other people's lives, about monsters, about lots of things that I _wish_ were make believe.

This time, I was standing alone on top of a hill in the moonlight, looking down on a nestled little… village? Maybe a village. There was a pine tree beside me, and my hand was on it, stroking the bark. My hand seemed smaller than usual, and pale. There was a bracelet made of chains on one wrist, glimmering in the silvery light. I heard hooves clopping and turned around.

I should have been surprised to see a centaur with no horns, or any kind of a centaur. They're not known for their love of humans or half-bloods. Instead, in the dream, I expected him and didn't even wave.

"You don't have to go, you know," he said. "You've been through a very troubling experience."

I wasn't aware that I was going to speak, let alone what I was going to say, and when the words did come out, they came in a girl's voice. Not high-pitched, but not low and husky. And definitely a girl's. "I want to go somewhere normal."

"You'll be behind in your studies. Even before…" The centaur pointed at the tree. "It had been a long while, child."

"I passed the entrance exams, and I'll have a very helpful roommate."

"The monsters are still out there."

"I can still fight them. Isn't that what our little training sessions have been for?"

The centaur nodded. "But -"

"And I'll come back weekends to keep training."

"I wish you would stay here."

"Because I'm a girl? You let the boy go home."

"The boy is going _home_ ," the centaur said gently. "His mother has been protecting him since he was small. You're going to a boarding school. There's no one to protect you."

I felt the corners of my mouth move up, but I wasn't smiling in my mind. I raised my arm. The chain bracelet dangled, and I touched it. Suddenly, it shifted and changed, and I was looking at the back of a bronze shield. The reflection wasn't good, but I saw a pale moon of a face, surrounded by a dark smudge of hair. Where the eyes were, there were two black smears. Either I wasn't allowed to see my eyes, or I was wearing a ridiculous amount of makeup.

The centaur took a step back.

"See?" I said. "I'm protected…"

The world blurred, the stars began to drip down like rain. For a moment, it was like being inside a painting by van Gogh, with the whole sky swirling above me, then it began to drip down like rain, leaving the sky clear above me. It was completely empty, even of stars.

I looked around. The world around me was empty as well, except for one figure: a woman in a goat-skin cape.

I knew her. I'd dreamed of her on and off all my life, and her appearance _never_ meant anything good.

"Lady Juno," I said.

She turned and gave me her oddly _practiced_ smile, the politician's wife waving off rumors about interns, even as one of their

 _(bastards)_

children looked back at her through her husband's eyes.

"Jason Grace," she said.

"Who was that?" I asked. "Before, I mean."

Her nose wrinkled. "No one of any importance. You are ready to begin now."

"Begin what?"

"You have a destiny, my champion. This is the beginning of its foundation. You will be a legend."

"I don't want to be a legend."

She waved her hand, and the black sky filled with stars, They danced around, creating the pictures of the zodiac. lines of light traced the patterns. "What's written in the stars, my little legend, has no interest in what you want."

"There's nothing written in the stars," I told her. I lowered my eyes before she decided to blast me with something. "I mean, my lady, the constellations… all of that… it's just what humans make up and… I don't know. Assign meaning to. The stars wouldn't even look the same from another planet. They're just _there_."

She didn't blast me, but the laugh she gave was even more fake than her smile. "Humans," she sniffed. "You understand nothing." She turned to me, and her eyes were full of stars. "Of course the stars don't move. And perhaps, if there is anyone to see from another world - "

"Is there?"

"I'm sure I have no idea, and you are interrupting."

"I'm sorry, Lady Juno."

" - perhaps they form their own understanding of what they see. Perhaps on some other world, they look at the earth, if they can see it, and it forms the button on someone's coat. But that doesn't matter, because the truth of the stars, in our context, is precisely in the assigning of meaning. A constellation is not created by adding new stars, but by adding new legends. The truth of the stars is in the lines we draw among them." Her eyes became normal again. They were brown and beautiful, but they didn't have much depth, like she was a cartoon queen drawn by a novice animator who substituted a clumsily placed starburst here and there for real emotion. "If those lines are destroyed -"

"How can imaginary lines be destroyed?"

"One more interruption, Jason Grace, and you will need to avoid cows for a year."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Very well. The lines we draw among the stars are no different than the other imaginary lines we draw, and those lines create civilization itself. They're the lines that bind us as families, as husband and wives, as nations, as cultures. Do you imagine those bonds to have some physical reality?"

"Well, parents and children…"

"Oh, yes. You know well how effective _that_ bond is," Juno said with a snort, and an image came into my mind of the vague woman shape who hugged me, then left me with the wolves. "The physical similarity may be there, but it is the imaginary line that joins people that creates importance for that similarity. Other animals simply eat their young."

It occurred to me to argue with her, but I'd tripped over her cow-curse before. They'd ruined most of my shoes the year I was eight, after I got sick of the Fifth losing games and I told Juno that I was going to quit camp and go find someone to adopt me instead of pretending to be in an army for a stupid old Empire that wasn't even around anymore. I don't know where all the cows came from. That might have been magic. But there was nothing magic in the little presents they kept leaving me.

So I kept my mouth shut.

"It's the lines that matter, Jason Grace," she said again. "The lines that make the pictures, the pictures that tell us the stories, the stories that create the world, or at least make it livable." She looked around with distaste at the landscape, which was now somewhere on a mountain road. "Or as livable as this place _can_ be, I suppose. It's the lines of fate that they'll want to break. The lines that we've spent so long drawing among the stars." She looked back at me. "Someday, my champion, you, too, will be written in lines among the stars… if such things survive what's to come."

I waited to make sure she was finished, then said, "What do you mean?"

"Oh, you'll see. There's no point in details right now. Mortals never understand that, but it's true."

"Because… knowing everything would make us freeze up?" I guessed.

"Because knowing everything is the same as knowing nothing. Most things out there to know aren't worth the space they take up in your brain. If you know a hundred facts, but you don't know which are the _important_ ones, how is that different from knowing nothing at all? How would you use them to determine your course of action?"

"I don't know. Roll the dice?"

She smiled faintly. "Roll the dice. Read the omens." She sighed. The dream was fading, and the mountain road was becoming the cohort barracks. My cot and trunk sat beside a pine tree. I could see the corner of a beaten up old duffel bag on the other side of it. The goddess was becoming indistinct. "Roll the dice… or flip a coin, Jason."

I opened my eyes, suddenly completely awake. Everyone else was still asleep. It was the gray, pre-dawn twilight outside the window. I threw my covers back and dug into the pocket of the olive green tee shirt I'd slept in. Sure enough, Ivlivs was there for me. I fished it out of the pocket and held it in the palm of my hand.

 _Roll the dice… or flip a coin._

I turned my hand into a loose fist, then balanced the coin on top of my thumbnail. With a flick, I sent it flying into the air, turning over and over. I held out my hand to catch it. I could see it coming as a coin, the axe-face down, the face of Julius Caesar up, but when it hit my hand, it thickened and lengthened, shedding soft light through the barracks. In my hand, I was now holding a perfectly balanced sword made of Imperial gold.

I stared at it. It was either catching the very faint light of the sky outside, or it had a little glow of its own. I wasn't sure. The only thing I knew completely was that it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

"Thanks, Dad," I whispered, but then I thought of my dream. It wasn't from Dad, even if his lightning bolt had loosed it. It was from my divine, nosy stepmother. _Thanks, Juno,_ I thought, but didn't say out loud.

I'd spoken once of her little dream-visits - it had been during the cow flop incident - and been dismissed roundly, even accused of attention-seeking.

"Oh, yeah," someone howled, "Juno just _loves_ sons of Jupiter. Ask Hercules!"

The thing was, she didn't love me. She didn't even like me. She just considered me _hers_ in some way, and she had some kind of plan for me. She expected a lot of me, and I didn't have much choice about living up to those expectations.

Unfortunately, even the other demigods didn't get many visits from their godly parents. It wasn't very Roman. We look for signs and omens, not direct communication. There was really no one to talk to about it. Maybe the others talked to their mortal parents, who'd obviously experienced visits, but I didn't have anyone like that.

"Whoa."

I looked up. Across the room, Bobby was sitting up in his cot, blinking blearily.

I tossed the sword into the air. As it hit the apex of its spin, it turned back into a coin, and landed neatly in my hand.

Bobby grinned. "Our quest is going to _rule_ ," he muttered, then rolled over and went back to sleep for the last twenty minutes before reveille.

The morning of the senate meeting was about the slowest one I ever spent. There were chores, and I had a math test, but mostly, it was about waiting for one o'clock, when we'd present our case. I was on the steps of the Senate at twelve-thirty, but my old friend, Corey John, convinced me not to look too anxious. They'd have other things to talk about first.

Bobby and Dakota arrived just before one, and we were definitely not late. The Senators - all older members of the legion, in their late teens and twenties - along with many adult leaders of the city all wandered in, seemingly at random. Many were coming from the baths, toweling off their hair and calling greetings. The opening business took forever. The Third cohort was requesting more underwear. The city parks needed volunteers to polish the cobblestones. The temple of Neptune was, again, being neglected. Would someone please see to the sea god before he sent an earthquake or something?

Finally, an adult from the city said, "Oh, hey, looks like we've got a quest approved by the augurs."

"Let's hear it!" someone yelled.

I got to my feet. Ivlivs had somehow crept into my hands, and I held it tight enough that I guessed I'd be able to see Caesar's face on my palm later. "My name is Jason Grace," I said. "Centurion of the Fifth Legion… um, cohort." I winced "Fifth Cohort, first legi… Um, Twelfth legion."

"We know where we are," an older kid said. "Do you?"

There was laughter at this. Two months ago, when I'd first been made centurion, I'd started a campaign to re-name the Twelfth Legion of Rome as the First Legion of America. The campaign hadn't exactly set the world on fire, but I still harbored fantasies about it, and sometimes, my brain just coughed it up.

"Yes, sir," I said, mustering a smile. "I propose a quest - "

"Based on speculation," someone said.

"Based on an augury. And word from a former legionnaire. He believes a marine monster of some kind is active off the Oregon coast. It's worth looking into. With…" I looked over my shoulder, to the north, where storm clouds were gathering around Mount Tam, but decided not to push that. That was big enough that, if the Senate saw fit to deal with it, they'd be dealing with it already. "We've seen more monsters lately," I told them, and started flipping through the notes I'd made. They were obviously bored.

I frowned, and suddenly, I was angry. I'd prepared the way _any_ quest leader would prepare. Maybe better than some. I had my research. They had my report. I'd gotten my augury. It was more than Gwen had done last year, when she' took me with her to collect nectar. But they were looking at me _indulgently_ , like they were just humoring the little kid. Jupiter's little kid. You have to pat him on the head now and then to avoid Daddy's temper tantrums, but it's not like he's a _real_ soldier.

I put down the notes and squared my shoulders. "I took the augury, and I'm leading this quest," I said firmly, stepping forward into the circle of sunlight that lit the room. "I'll take along Bobby and Dakota. I've arranged for transportation, but we will need fuel money. Bobby and Dakota will need weapons from the armory."

They were all listening now. A few of them even seemed interested, and Jonas Song, our praetor, looked positively alarmed.

"And _you_ won't need a weapon?" he asked.

"I have one," I said, and drew Ivlivs. I flipped it into the air, expecting the sword, but instead, it elongated into a spear. I tried not to look surprised. Apparently, it was a heads-or-tails thing. Who knew?

They were all silent, and I knew then, with total certainty, that they would let us go.

The man who'd first remembered that I was here said, "According to the notes, your source has made up more than a few tales in the past. And you don't have much questing experience. You should take along… well, perhaps someone from another cohort."

"I quested with Gwen last year," I said. "For the nectar we brought back. I'm a centurion, and I can lead this."

"It's likely a fool's errand."

"Then it's good you won't have wasted one of your experienced centurions on it."

There was some good-natured murmuring, and I had a horrible feeling that someone was going to come up and pinch my cheeks and tell me what a good little centurion I was being. No one, thank the gods, tried it.

In the end, one of the adults opened his wallet and pulled out two hundred dollars, telling the Senate that they could pay him back later. He gave it to me, and shooed the three of us out of the building.

Octavian was standing at the bottom of the steps. "I should have told them not to send you," he said. "Emily wouldn't allow it."

"Why would you want to?" I asked.

"Because you're going to lead us into disaster." He wrinkled his nose. "I've seen it. You'll turn your back on us when things get bad."

"I will not."

"Yes you will. You'll turn into a barbarian, and you'll leave this camp and die outside the walls of Rome."

"Thank you for that astute assessment," Bobby said, steering me away.

Dakota followed us. "It's crazy," he said. "You're the steadiest person here."

"Yeah. Whatever."

We walked up the hill, and past the temple of Jupiter. Workmen were up on the roof, fixing the lightning damage. I stopped, not entirely knowing what I meant to do. I just wanted to go up there. I had a crazy vision of myself, storming up to Dad's statue and telling him that I could handle my own business and I didn't need to lean on being a son of Jupiter. I knew I'd never do it, but I also knew I wanted to go to the temple, right now. I felt like there was a hook in my head, pulling me toward it.

"What is it?" Dakota asked.

"Nothing. Go on. I'll meet you at Bobby's dad's place."

But they didn't go on. So much for my great leadership. I went up the stairs to the temple, with both of them in tow.

I went straight to the area under the roof damage, the place where Ivlivs had fallen down from the sky. Had it been in the marble? Under a join? Or had someone cast it down straight from the clouds?

I didn't know. I bent and looked at the prophecies on the floor.

"What are we looking for?" Bobby asked.

"I don't know. I-" Then I saw it, the black mark on the floor where the bolt had hit. It wasn't directly on a prophecy, but it was close.

Carved into the marble was a six-line poem, faded over the years as the floor wore down under many passings. If it had ever been lined in gold, it no longer was, but it was visible enough.

 _When darkness falls upon the west_  
 _And Rome at last is put to test_  
 _The sea shall yield a hero true_  
 _But blood of Rome shall not win through_  
 _And the one who bears Jove's spark_  
 _Shall drag the stars into the dark._

We stared at it for a long time, then Bobby shook his head.

"Here's a thought," he said. "Let's _not_ share that one with Octavian."


	4. The Quest Gets Off to a Perfect Start

**FOUR:  
The Quest Gets Off To a Perfect Start**

We left the temple without saying much after reading the prophecy and wound through the streets of the city to the far side, heading for Bobby's house. The Pomeranian line, dotted with its busts of Terminus, stretched away. Terminus never bothered people on the way out of the city.

"He didn't ask about your, uh, cash flow," Dakota mentioned, jerking his chin at one of the statues.

I hadn't thought about it. Terminus was usually pretty good about stopping any weapon from crossing the line, but he hadn't asked about my coin. I'd brought it over the line several times. Maybe, because it came from the gods, Terminus didn't mind. Or maybe its disguised form didn't register as a weapon for him. I wondered if there was an advantage to that. I'd have to try carrying it across in sword form sometime, just to see what he'd do.

"Hmm," I said.

"A man of many words," Bobby muttered.

He moved into the lead as we crossed, loping along the dirt road that led to the odd farms that surrounded the city right up to the point where the enchantment ended. A messenger on a bike passed us, headed back to town. Some of the crops came back into the population, others were sold. Bobby's dad raised some of the unicorns the camp used, along with a barn full of dairy cows.

It's that one," he said unnecessarily, pointing to a house and barn surrounded by unicorns that ran through the pastures. When I'd met Mr. Botolph in town, I'd known he was a farmer, but it didn't connect in any real way until Bobby opened the gate and led us down a dirt driveway toward the barn. Mr. Botolph, wearing overalls and heavy farm boots, was pouring water into a sluiceway that led down among the feed bins.

"Hello, boys," he said. "I heard the Senate meeting went in your favor."

"Already?" I asked.

"Word travels fast among parents," he said. "Bobby's mom works with the husband of one of the ex-senators - you remember Mr. Greene, Bobby?"

Bobby nodded, but when his father's back was turned, he shrugged extravagantly.

"Anyway," Mr. Botolph said, "Mr. Greene's wife dropped in right away to tell your mom that you were questing these days. She sent me a messenger. Just left. I gave him some fresh blackberries. You might have seen him on the road. We're proud of you."

Bobby blushed. "Uh, thanks."

"When will you be leaving?"

"Tomorrow after breakfast."

"Ah, always the hurry in the legion. Do you think you could get leave for the evening? Your mom and I would love to see you off, and your transportation is right here." He gestured to a farm truck that looked like it might have been new when Bobby's grandfather was in the legion, then looked at Dakota. "You sure you can drive it?"

Dakota nodded. "It's a beaut. I love trucks. Stick shift?"

"You know it."

"Sweet."

"You know cars?"

"My mom wouldn't let me get my license until I knew what was under the hood."

Mr. Botolph smiled. "She a mechanic?"

"Caterer," Dakota said, grinning. "But, you know… she has to drive the catering truck, and people get really snippy if their wedding reception gets off to a late start because the caterer didn't keep her truck in working order."

"Makes sense."

We were able to get leave for the night, and we ate supper with Bobby's parents. Mrs. Botolph came back from her job in New Rome with all of our letters of introduction, should we need the help of a legionnaire while we were traveling. She had bright blue Jovian eyes like mine. She said she didn't have any particular powers, unless you counted being able to predict thunderstorms before the meteorologists got around to it. She didn't know what powers her demigod ancestor had possessed on that side, though another ancestor was a daughter of Pales, which was probably why she was good with the livestock.

"She is, too," Mr. Botolph said, reaching over to squeeze her fingers. "Never did see anyone better with animals."

Bobby made a show of making a gagging sound and Dakota looked bored, but I was fascinated. I'd never actually spent the night in a house with a family. Was this how they were supposed to work, with the parents still flirting with each other while their teenage son ate supper? The littler kids, who hadn't signed on for legion work yet, had household duties. Bobby's little sister had to take the family dog for a walk, and his little brother had to wash the dishes. Later, we all watched movies on the television. Bobby ended up wrestling his sister (her name was Susannah) for the remote control, but for the most part, everyone got along. Dakota and I played rock-paper-scissors to decide who'd get the guest room, and he won. I would sleep on the pull out sofa. Bobby'd be in the room he'd slept in as a child.

I almost asked if I could see it, but I decided it would come out weird, like I was an archaeologist or something, trying to suss out just what it was that this tribe did in its secret space.

I settled in on the sofa and tried to watch television alone, which Mrs. Botolph said was the big advantage of being out there, but I couldn't find anything I wanted to watch. We didn't get cable inside the barriers, and the reception on the other stations was terrible. I put in a movie after a while, about four boys walking on a set of train tracks. It was pretty good, but I was used to falling asleep early, and I was out like a light long before they got to their destination.

There was a household alarm clock that went off at dawn the next day, playing reveille in a kind of snappy, jazzy way. Bobby came downstairs with his duffel already over his arm, and Dakota came out of the bathroom, slurping freshly made Kool-Aid out of his flask. I got my things ready while Mr. Botolph went over last minute truck instructions with Dakota, then we all piled into the front seat, our duffel bags secured down in the truck bed.

By the time the sun was all the way up, we were on the road, the truck chugging out through the Caldecott tunnel toward Berkley on Route 24. We got some weird looks at the truck, which belched nasty exhaust every now and then if Dakota went too fast.

"I bet you could have gotten plane tickets," Bobby said, fiddling with the radio now that we were clear of camp. He found some hip-hop coming out of Berkley. "We could just drive to the airport, get on a plane, and fly to Oregon. Or you could fly us yourself."

"I can't _fly_. We need to get that straight. I can't fly, and I don't do lightning strikes."

"Either one would be pretty handy," Dakota said. "Which way do you want to go?"

"North."

"I mean, which road? Inland's faster."

I shook my head. "Let's stick by the sea, in case the monster moves."

"Route one," Dakota said. "Check."

"Can we swing close to Mount Tam?" I asked.

"What?"

"Just wondering. It's not seriously out of the way."

"I knew it," Bobby said. "Jason's going to save the day. Are you going to check and make sure Atlas is still holding up the sky?"

A part of me wanted to. I knew he was up there, and I'd always wanted to see how that worked. But that was _way_ outside mission parameters, and I figured we'd know if he let go of the sky. I wasn't sure _how_ we'd know, since as far as I know, the sky is always touching the earth, but the myths always made sense somehow, and they seemed to think it would be pretty catastrophic. It was supposedly the reason they'd built Camp Jupiter there - so that, in case of emergency, they could send in the legion.

There was no emergency here, just a deep sense of gloom.

I shook my head. "We don't have to go all the way up. Just as close as the road gets us. I want a look at that storm."

It took a good while for Dakota to navigate down across the bay. We got caught in the morning traffic around San Quentin, then turned south, so we could pick up Route 1 in Manzanita. Route 1 took us on a looping, scenic trip west through Mill Valley and the Marin headlands, finally passing the entrance to Mount Tamalpais State Park, but, to my disappointment, there wasn't much of a view. I could feel, somehow, that we were closer to the sky as such here. There was a certain heaviness to the air, a sense of land's end above, as well as to the west. But there wasn't anything to see.

"That's a whole lot of nothing," Bobby said, looking up the road as Dakota came to a stop.

There was a choppy noise up the hill, and a small motorbike appeared. The rider came closer to us, and finally pulled up beside the truck. I thought he might be a park ranger, but he wasn't dressed as one. He was a college-aged guy who looked pretty sick, actually. He had a big red scar running down the side of his face.

"Looking for something?" he asked in a voice that suggested we'd better _not_ be, which made me even more curious.

"Should we be?" I asked.

His eyes were crawling over the truck. They finally found something he wanted to see, and he smiled, his face suddenly becoming open and cheerful. "Nah," he said. "Except the wonder of nature. But you're from here, aren't you?" he asked, and pointed at the back of the truck. The license plate, I guess.

"All my life," I said.

"So you've probably seen everything. Me? I'm a tourist. Guess you must see a lot of us out here!"

"Not that many, really. What's up there?"

His smile got wider. "Just the top of the world. That's all. You going into the park?"

I wanted to say yes. I wanted to see if he'd let us by. But I had a schedule, and a mission I was actually supposed to be working on.

"No," I told him. "Guess not."

"Miles to go, huh?"

"Miles and miles."

He nodded sympathetically. "You'd probably get places quicker on the inland highways," he said. "Just bringing it up. If you've already seen the ocean, you may as well go fast."

"Thanks for the advice," I said. "But I think we'll stick to the coast road."

"Your call, man."

We all sat awkwardly, wondering who was going to go first. The boy finally revved his bike and disappeared up a side road.

"Granolas," Dakota said, rolling his eyes. He shifted the truck and got us moving again. He pulled on past the mountain. Bobby started singing camp songs, and after a while, we were all singing them. Whatever else was going on, we were out of camp and out on our own.

A little south of Stinson Beach, Dakota glanced down at the dashboard and muttered, "We might have a problem. Engine light's on."

We should have stopped in the town. Instead, Bobby smacked the dash with his fist. The light went out, and he said, "It does that all the time. Don't sweat it."

It worked at first. The truck continued to run, and the light stayed out. We went back to singing as we passed about a dozen places called "Gulch," and swung inland for a while. We finally hit the coast permanently at Bodega Bay. Bobby suggested that we go by a stuffed animal to sacrifice to Neptune - "You know, just to ask for a good trip, and maybe a monster or two" - but I convinced him that throwing a bunch of synthetic stuffing into the ocean was maybe not the best way to suck up to the sea god.

We stopped for lunch in town, even though it was still kind of early, and topped off the gas tank. There was a lot of ground to cover, most of it dotted with tiny little towns where we might or might not find a place to refuel ourselves and the truck. Bobby tried flirting with a waitress, who was unimpressed, and asked us what we were all doing out of school.

It wasn't far past Bodega Bay that the engine light went on again.

"I better slow down," Dakota said.

Bobby slapped the dash, and the light went out again, but this time, it flickered back to life almost immediately.

"This could be a problem," Dakota told me. "The engine light… it's not a good thing."

"Even I know that."

"Maybe we can still make it. I can get the car fixed in town while you guys are off questing. I mean, this part of it's my job, right?"

"Yeah…"

I saw a sign for a town called Jenner coming up, and I thought maybe we should swing in and get the truck looked at. I really did _think_ about it.

But getting stuck on the road in Mr. Botolph's old truck was just the sort of thing Octavian would find every opportunity to lord over us. We'd have to call the Senate for funds before even getting to the monster (which might or might not exist).

So I let Jenner slip on by us. And Timber Cove. And Sea Ranch. We kept talking, not singing. Bobby pointed out an old fashioned ship that someone was sailing down the coast - a big wooden job with white sails, like a pirate ship. Must have been one of the weird collectors or historical reenactors.

The truck was shaking quite a bit now, occasionally making loud, clanking sounds. We were no longer singing.

A few miles past a little bend in the road called Gualala, right after we passed some incredibly expensive looking houses north of town, the truck gave one mighty shudder and stalled, belching black smoke out of its tailpipes and steaming up under the hood.

We looked at each other.

Bobby groaned.

Dakota got out of the front seat and popped open the trunk. "I'll see what I can do with it." He looked around. "Maybe we should get it off the coast road, though. It's pretty narrow. There's a service road down there." He nodded to our left, where the Pacific stretched out to eternity after a thin slice of sloped land. A beaten dirt path led to some abandoned-looking shacks.

I got out and helped Dakota push while Bobby steered, and we wound up in a grassy area outside a shed.

Dakota got an oily toolbox from the back of the truck and leaned back over the engine. Bobby went over to help.

I knew nothing about cars.

Some quest leader.

"I don't know if we can fix this," Dakota said.

"Sure we can!"

"Come on, Botolph, the thing's breaking down."

"Are you insulting my dad's truck?"

"I doubt he's tried to get it this far for a while. Jason, do you have… well, any phone or walkie-talkie or anything? Is there a CB in the truck?"

I had no idea what a CB was, but Bobby said there wasn't one. He was getting frantic, and defensive.

"Hey," Dakota said. "Come on. You know this truck. Give me a hand here."

I mentally thanked him for keeping calm, and put my head in my hands to think. We had to contact someone. It would be even worse than asking for repair money. It would be asking for that _and_ getting a tow from some old legionnaire. And who knew where there was one around here? I'd have to actually call camp.

But it had to be done. "I'm going back to one of those big houses," I said. "I'll take the letters and see if I can get someone to come help us. You two keep working on it."

"Yes, sir," Dakota said absently.

"Sure thing," Bobby added.

I looked in the side mirror on the truck. My hair was in disarray, my face was red with heat from the truck, and I generally looked like a vagrant.

They'd definitely welcome me up in the rich houses.

There was nothing for it.

I went back up to the main road, and about a mile south. The first road I saw had three houses at the top of it, but I didn't turn up it. I'm not sure why. Something just kept my feet moving to the south. I stopped at the base of the next turn off. There was only one big house here, with a big barn that I guessed was for show, since there were no animals.

Lupa the wolf-goddess doesn't teach us _not_ to use logic. Logic is a fine tool when there's nothing to work with. But by the time anyone gets to Camp Jupiter, he or she has been taught to trust instinct, especially in situations like this. My instinct told me that this farmhouse was the place to be.

The long dirt driveway snaked up to it through a tunnel of trees. My feet puffed up little bits of dust as I went, so by the time I got to the front porch, I figured I looked like I'd been in a mud bath. I rang the bell. No answer.

Of course.

I went down the front stairs and around to the back. There was a clothesline here, which bore a single set of girl's clothes - a completely tattered denim skirt, a pair of bright red stockings with holes at the knees, and a ruffled white blouse.

I frowned. It didn't seem like the kind of thing that would be in a country house that commanded what had to be a great view of the Pacific from the upper floors.

"Hello?" I called.

No answer.

I went to the back porch, which had just a screen door, and knocked again. "Hello? My name is Jason Grace. I need to call… could I use your phone? My friends are stuck down on that service road - just north of here? - and our truck broke down."

Again, no answer.

I tried the door. It was locked with a hook latch from the inside. For a minute, I thought that was suspicious, but of course, if they'd left via the front door, this one would have been locked. Through the door, I could see into the kitchen. There was a picture of two happy looking men taped to the fridge. One of them was holding a new baby.

I looked again at the clothes on the line. Battered clothes. Girl's clothes. Not baby clothes. Not men's clothes.

 _So they have a niece, and she's here visiting. And they're crunchy granola types who don't believe in washers and dryers. And…_

And those clothes were _wrecked._

I took a few steps out into the yard. "Hello?" I called again. "Is anyone here? I'm not going to hurt you."

No one answered.

I went toward the barn.

I did see the car - give me that, all right? - and I even looked at it. It was a nice little convertible. There were no keys in it, and it looked like the back wheels were up on blocks.

I went into the barn.

It wasn't exactly for show, but it wasn't a real barn, either. Instead of animals in stalls and lofts full of hay, it was loaded with old furniture in various stages of refinishing. It was a business, and that meant there might even be a phone out here. I searched the first floor and found nothing, then climbed a ladder up to the loft.

There was a nest here.

It was an office, obviously. I guessed it hadn't been used for a while. The desk was strewn with invoices. There was also a receipt for a cruise impaled on a spike. The dates on it were last summer, so the family should have come home by now. They were supposed to take the _Princess Andromeda_ on "an unforgettable Caribbean Cruise," due back in June.

But wherever they were, their office had become a home for someone else. Drop cloths from the workshop downstairs had been spread out to make a bed. Cans of food and drinks were stacked in the shadows. There were girl-things on the desk now - a hairbrush, some little rubber bands, and three pairs of earrings. Little chain bracelets were tangled around each other on top of an inventory book, and a bottle of strawberry lip gloss almost rolled off the edge when I bumped it.

When I bent down to catch it, I saw the phone jack. There was something plugged into it.

I put aside the mystery of the girl and found the phone cable with my fingers. It crossed behind the desk and dropped down a beam into the workshop.

I climbed down the ladder again, wondering what I'd missed. It took a few minutes to find the beam, but I finally saw it. The phone cable had been secured tightly enough to it that it effectively disappeared, especially as it had been painted.

At the base of the beam sat an old roll-top desk.

I opened it and, to my great relief, found a telephone. It was an antique, like everything else here, or at least it looked like one. It had a rotary dial, but when I spun the first number, a cunningly hidden digital display came up under the handset.

I dialed the rest of the number to the legion headquarters.

There weren't many phones at Camp Jupiter, because of the monsters, but there was a communications center for emergencies, always staffed by a centurion. I'd done the duty myself sometimes. The phones never rang, so whoever was there was probably bored stiff.

"Headquarters," someone answered, and I felt my relief come out in a long sigh.

"Gwen?" I asked.

"Jason? You've only been gone since this morning. What happened? Why are you calling?"

I told her, as briefly as I could.

"And you don't have a list of handy legionnaires?"

"I do in Winchester Bay," I told her. "But out here? _Are_ there any legionnaires? I mean, we have enough money with us to broker transportation, if someone can meet us here."

"I'll see what I can find." She shuffled through something on the other end, probably the master reserve list of retired legionnaires. "I've got nothing closer than Stinson Beach," she said. "Give me the coordinates and I'll -"

Outside, an engine screamed.

"Gwen, I better go."

"Jason -"

"I'll get back in touch."

There was a thump as the convertible came off of its blocks.

I ran outside in time to see the car peel out from behind the barn, screaming toward the coast with a plume of dust in its wake.


	5. Captured By The World's Shortest Pirate

**FIVE:  
We Are Captured By The World's Shortest Pirate**

I was glad for all the hours of torture at Camp Jupiter, euphemistically called "calisthenics," that got me in shape for the run. I didn't waste energy trying to put on a burst of speed to catch a car. There was no chance of that. But I picked up speed gradually, and by the time I was at the bottom of the driveway, I was going at a good clip, and not straining myself too much to be of use when I got to the others. I was sure that was where the car was headed. Whoever it was heard me say that we had money.

A lucky breeze picked up behind me, and it lightened me up a little bit more. I felt like I was almost skimming over the blacktop of Route 1 now, and I was only a little bit winded when I turned down the service road. I slowed down as soon as I saw the sheds, then stopped and flattened myself in the tall grass.

Bobby and Dakota were on the ground. Dakota was out cold. Bobby was picking feebly at a heavy net that had been dropped over them. The little convertible was parked at a skewed angle across the path, but I didn't see any sign of its driver.

I pulled Ivlivs from my pocket and held it loosely in my hand.

There weren't a lot of places to hide out here. Behind the sheds. in the sole tree clinging to the cliff (dangerous), inside the body of the convertible, or in the truck bed.

Or -

The grass exploded nearby, and something jabbed into my back, sending electricity up and down my muscles.

Taser.

It would have been a good strategy except for my dad, the god of lightning. Electricity might sting a little bit, and I've gotten some burns, but mostly, it channels right through me.

I flipped over and grabbed at the taser pressed into my back, using it as leverage to pull the attacker off of me.

I used more strength than I needed.

The girl who'd been sitting on my back was small and lightweight, and the force I used actually threw her several feet away from me. She rolled neatly and stood back up, discarding the taser without a second look and pulling out a short sword.

Her readjustment barely gave me time to flip Ivlivs, which came down in sword form. If she was surprised by _that_ , she didn't show it. She just jumped up and brought her own sword crashing down.

I met the blade, and for a moment, we just stared at each other.

I don't know how old she was, but she was short and underfed, with a gaunt, hollow look about her. Her long black hair was in two braids, and she had a bright yellow bandana around her head.

Weirdly, she seemed to be wearing the remains not of some kind of pirate costume or even active wear. She had on a tattered skirt that was some shade of light purple and looked like the kind of thing a prep school girl would wear to tea with her mother. And I didn't know much about girl's clothes, but I was pretty sure the top was white silk.

She had large, dark brown eyes and olive skin. Her knees were scabby and she had a healing cut on her arm, but nothing looked recent. She must have taken down Bobby and Dakota without a fight.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Give me your money and your letters."

"What?"

"I beat your friends, and I'll beat you, too," she said. She had a slight trace of an accent that I couldn't place. "Give me your money and your letters, and maybe I'll let you go on your way."

I blinked at her. She was glaring at me with no fear at all. She believed she was going to win this fight.

"I'm not giving you anything," I said.

She thrust forward, pushing me back with a sudden attack, obviously hoping I'd lose my balance moving backward on the uneven ground. It wasn't a bad strategy, given that I probably outweighed her by forty pounds, but I hadn't spent the last nine years in the legion without learning how to fight this way. I'd had to use her strategy a lot when I was smaller than everyone, and I'd watched exactly how they learned to parry it.

I spread my feet wide enough to keep balance and moved forward, getting within reach of her and forcing her to jump back.

"I can knock you down and disarm you," I said. "You won't last if I decide to push it."

"I'll last as long as I need to. Big boys tire out, and you already ran all the way here."

She started to attack again, and I decided I'd rather _not_ find out if she was right. I swept the sword around and met her blade, holding her still without much effort, then twisted the blades until she was forced to let go from the pressure on her wrists. Her sword fell to the ground. She had her wits about her and tried to dive down for it, but I grabbed her by the back of her shirt and heaved her away. While she was scrabbling to get up, I picked up her sword. I was sure it was over. Either she'd calm down and accept defeat, or she'd run away.

Her face twisted in rage and she ran at me. I was taken by surprise, and her momentum was irresistible. She knocked me over like a bowling pin, and if I hadn't done a little bit of wrestling at camp, she might have gotten away with her sword.

Instead, I pinned her.

"Will you back off?" I asked.

She shook her head and tried to kick at me.

"Come on. I don't want to hurt you, and if you need money or help getting somewhere, I can help you. But not while you're trying to hurt me. Not until my friends are out of that net."

"I don't want your help! I want the money, and the letters!"

I pulled her up and carried her to a rock, sitting her down, and threw the swords a good distance away. Mine would come back. "What good are letters going to do you? Do you think you're going to pass as a son of Jupiter?"

"I can be whoever I want."

I couldn't help it. I liked her. Maybe it was weird, but there it was. I liked her, and I would continue to like her for a long time.

"Here's a better idea," I said. "We all get to know each other, and then I write you your very own letter of introduction to… whoever it is you want to be introduced to."

"You don't understand."

"No, I really don't. Who are you? Why do you want our letters?"

She glared at me for a long time, then finally said, "I am Reyna."

"Got a last name?"

"Pirata," she said.

"Your name is 'Pirate'?"

"I _am_ a pirate." She ground her teeth. "I had to leave the ship after that thing with…" She shook her head in disgust. "They'll never let me back on if I don't bring them something. Money and sons of… whoever you're sons of. The letters will prove it."

"Jupiter," I said, even though I'd already told her.

She made a disgusted sort of sound. "Of course. That's why my taser didn't work."

"Exactly." I sighed. "If I let go of you, will you… I don't know, not try to kidnap me?"

"You'd be crazy to believe me if I said that."

"True. But I'm tired of holding onto you. So I'm going to risk it."

I let go of her wrist and stepped back, leaning against the truck and rubbing my wrists, which always ached after fighting. She stayed on the rock, her jaw set tightly.

"Quite a fight," I told her. "You're good."

"I'm a daughter of Bellona," she said, sticking her chin up. "I can fight anyone. You just… I…"

"You haven't eaten much for a while?"

"I'm not starving."

"I didn't say you were starving. Just thought you might be a little hungry."

She kicked a stone and sent it flying across the service road. "I should have beaten you!"

"I'm bigger than you and I'm trained. That's all. Six months at Camp Jupiter, and I'm pretty sure you could wipe the floor with me. They'd teach you to get around the unequal size problem."

"I know how. Didn't I tell you I was a pirate? I fought with grown-up men - not to mention monsters - and I won." She glared again. "You just surprised me when the taser didn't work. It threw me off. That won't happen again."

"I need to get my friends out of that net."

"Go ahead." She smiled tightly, then, very suddenly, made a dive at the swords.

I ran forward and blocked her. "Come _on_ ," I said. "Give it a rest."

She stared at me defiantly.

I glanced over at the others. Dakota was starting to come around now, and Bobby was mostly conscious and struggling with the net.

"Come on over," I called. "Meet my friend… Reyna?" I asked. "Is it really Reyna?"

She clamped her jaw shut and I thought she might continue the charade, but she finally sighed and said, "Yes. Reyna."

"There's a last name?"

"There is one," she said, but didn't say more.

Bobby was grumbling loudly, and he finally found the edge of the net. He flung it away from himself in disgust, then pulled it off of Dakota, who was trying to sit up. Once he was sure Dakota was succeeding, he turned and stormed up the hill. He got to the rock where Reyna was sitting. "What are you doing? I'm going to drag you back to camp and -"

"You and what army?" Reyna asked, standing up.

"Stop it," I said. "Both of you."

" _Both_ of us?" Bobby said. "She just ran in and zapped us. Then I think she hit us. There is no 'both.' She attacked us."

"And I've got her disarmed, and she's going to stay that way, at least until we… um… borrow that car and take it to a city where we can find some help."

"No!" Reyna said, turning on me, her jaw dropped halfway to her breastbone. "The car was… it was a gift from the gods. For _me_ , not you. I had a dream telling me to look there."

Dakota came up the hill woozily, rubbing his head. "Wait a minute… this is the one who knocked us both down?"

"Yes." Reyna crossed her arms and glared. She had a really impressive glare, but I'd had about enough of it.

"Right now, I want options on what to do."

"Do? How about we take her to the police?" Bobby asked.

"She's one of us," I said. "Daughter of Bellona."

"Then give her to the Senate." He looked at her, then back at me. "I've never seen her before. She's not from camp."

"Camp?"

"Camp," I said. "Usually, demigods find their way to Lupa and -" I stopped.

"What?" Dakota asked.

"Well," I said, "what if _we're_ Reyna's way to Lupa?"

"We're not turning back." Bobby said. "Unless it's to hand her over to the praetors."

"Demigods have to make their own way," Dakota added. "I never heard of anyone getting there because someone dropped her off."

 _My mother dropped_ me _off,_ I thought. _Drove me up the coast from… from…_

But I lost it. "She found us and maybe we're supposed to send the way - "

"Hey!" Reyna stood up, cutting off the conversation. "They only thing you're my way to is back on the ship. They'll take me back if I bring treasure and hostages. And who is _Lupa_? Unless you mean the wolf that suckled Romulus and Remus, I have no idea."

"That's who we mean," Dakota said.

"Oh," she said. "Great. You're all crazy."

"Why is that crazier than being a daughter of Bellona and traveling with pirates?" I asked.

She frowned and sat back down. "It just is."

"Wait," Bobby said. "Why are we on the subject of helping her, anyway? She tried to kidnap us."

" _And_ she does not _need_ your help!" Reyna put in.

"Could we all just stop sniping at each other long enough to talk? Figure things out? Reyna, you're not getting us, our money, or our letters, so please stop demanding them. Bobby, I'm not sending Reyna to the Senate." Their postures didn't change. "Oh, come _on_ ," I said. "I'm tired. You're tired. Can we just talk?"

Reyna glared one more time, then said, "Fine."

Bobby said, "Whatever," and sat down on the back of the convertible.

Dakota grinned. "That's why you're centurion. I'm still trying to figure out what's going on."

"Me, too," I said. "Reyna, my name is Jason. These two are Bobby and Dakota. We're on a quest -"

"A what?"

"A quest. It's like, you know, a trip to -"

"I know what it is. But who goes on _quests_? I feel like you should be wearing armor and riding horses."

"We have armor," Dakota told her. "Not much, but we have it."

"We're from the Twelfth Legion of Rome," I said. "Did your mortal parent ever tell you about it?"

She went very quiet, then said. "No."

I gave her the short form of the Legion's history - that, as Rome fell, we were entrusted to keep the spirit of the empire alive, and that we've served in every center of Western Civilization for two thousand years - and pointed out that most demigods had to come, or they'd end up threatened by monsters. "So, if you haven't seen any monsters, you're lucky. You should go to camp and train." By the time I finished, the afternoon had gotten dark and stormy.

"I've seen plenty of monsters," she said. "Not all of them have scales."

Bobby was finally calming down, and a mention of monster fighting drew him in a little bit. "So, who are you? For real."

Reyna looked up and opened her mouth to speak, but the sky decided to let loose just then.

"Thanks, Gramps!" Bobby shouted at the sky.

"We can shelter in the truck," Dakota offered.

"No," Reyna said. "Get in the car and put the top up. We'll go back to my place."

There was no real arguing about it, and it occurred to me that maybe the storm _was_ a gift from my father, making us work with Reyna and shelter together.

Dakota slipped behind the wheel without giving Reyna a chance to try and use the storm to kidnap us as she'd threatened. She had left the keys in the ignition, and he turned them. The car coughed to life, and as soon as we were all in, he raised the top.

The ride wasn't exactly smooth. It seemed likely that the car had been up on blocks for a reason.

We drove back to the farmhouse on the hill, and the car stalled out just as we got to the barn.

"If it's a gift from the gods," Bobby said, "I hope you kept the receipt for them. 'Cause I think it's a lemon."

"Shut up," Reyna said and got out of the car.

We all followed her into the barn. By now, it was pouring, and we got soaked.

"They have drop cloths down here," Reyna said, opening a big trunk and pulling out wadded up bolts of fabric. They were covered with old paint stains, but seemed to have been through the wash a few times, so they weren't stiff and sticky. "We can dry off with them. I have food."

We all took our "towels," but no one moved to follow her further in.

She sighed and pulled out an old wooden stool that would likely sell for a few hundred dollars in Berkley. "All right, then," she said, pointing at the forest of furniture. "Take your picks. It's a long story."

We all found chairs. Bobby sat on the rough work bench. Dakota found a half-restored armchair. I took a straight-backed wooden thing. I sat down and looked over at her. "All right, Reyna. Talk."

She talked.

She wasn't telling us everything. I knew that, and it was okay. She told us enough to get on with.

"I was born in San Juan," she began.

"In Texas?" Dakota asked.

"No. Is there a San Juan in Texas?'

He nodded. "I used to go with a girl from there. It's on the border."

"Oh." She shook her head. "San Juan, Puerto Rico. I had a sister. We… we left."

She didn't offer any explanation of this, and no one pushed. Most half-bloods who wandered to camp had some moment when they'd "left." Sometimes, it was benign. Most of the time, at best, there were hurt feelings about it. No one prodded them.

Reyna and her sister had escaped on a boat and ended up in the Sea of Monsters, where they were rescued by a witch who ran a resort. She had a habit of turning men into animals, which Reyna disapproved of. "My sister didn't mind," she said. "That's one of the things we…" She shook her head. "That's ahead of here. I didn't like it, but the animals were men who were very bad, so I wasn't foolish enough to free them."

But someone _had_ freed them. She wouldn't say the name, no matter how much prodding we put into it. An idiot, she said. A fool. A wicked boy and his wicked friend. The animals turned back into men. Pirates. They ransacked the island and took their vengeance on the people who lived there. Reyna and her sister could fight. There had never been a time she couldn't fight. They defended themselves and the other women of the island, as the witch had fled in terror.

The long and short of it was that she and her sister had ended up sailing with the pirates.

"And those are the ones you want to go _back_ to?" Dakota asked.

"I was good at being a pirate!" Reyna fumed. "We fought monsters on the sea. I killed a lot of them."

"Sea monsters?" I asked, interested. "You fought a sea monster?"

She shook her head. "No. Not then. We didn't try to fight Scylla and Charybdis; we just passed through carefully. The sea monster is later. These monsters, they were on a boat. A cruise ship, actually." She blushed. "The _Princess Andromeda._ There were mortals there, but they… they didn't make it. One of the pirates got away with the manifest. That's how I knew…" She looked up at the house guiltily. "It wasn't me who killed them, it was the monsters, and I killed the monsters, so I figured they wouldn't mind if I… borrowed the place."

There was nothing to be said. I thought of the little baby in the picture, held by one of its fathers, all of them grinning like there was no tomorrow. Apparently, there _hadn't_ been.

"Anyway," Reyna said, "we fought them and disabled the ship a little, but there were too many. It was a draw." She got quiet. "There was a boy who asked me to stay there. Said half-bloods would make the prophecy come true. He said we were coming to Atlas. But why would I stay on a ship full of monsters? Why would I want to do that?" She frowned slightly, as if weighing the question, then shook her head. "We got ahead of them. The captain thought we might be able to block their way and take their ship. He lost his real ship - that _boy_ took it, I don't know how he sailed it with just one friend - and he doesn't like the one we took. But they're still not here. They must have put into a port for repairs."

"Okay," I said. "So, you fought with pirates against monsters. And then you got here. What happened?"

She pressed her lips together tightly. "We went all the way up to Seattle. Only there are people in Seattle who _really_ don't like pirates. They attacked, and we fought on the beach. Only my sister… she joined them. She told me to come, but I didn't want to."

"Because of…" Dakota scratched his head. "You said you and your sister disagreed about the way the witch treated boys."

Reyna nodded. "I don't think anyone should be treated like they don't count. I mean, I wouldn't like it if someone turned me into a gerbil just for being a girl. And I don't think I'd like it much more if someone put me on a leash."

"A leash?" I repeated. "Really?"

She nodded. "There were men in collars and I think they could get shocked or zapped or something. I told my sister that we just got away from that, and she said, 'We didn't get away, we were shoved out.' And she's right, only…" She looked at us with a hint of the old defiance. "I don't think boys ought to be treated like that any more than girls ought to. I don't think it's right. And I said that. And I went back to the pirates. She can do what she wants. But she's wrong. No one should be treated that way."

"No argument," I said.

"Anyway, they turned south again. That cruise ship was headed for the Panama canal. They wanted another whack at it. So did I. Only a couple of days out, that's when we hit a sea monster. It was the first one we saw since we got out of the Sea of Monsters. We had to go far out to sea to avoid it, and every time they got near the coast, it went after them again. They said in the old days, people would sacrifice a maiden to it. They got a funny look in their eyes, and the next thing you know, I'm in a cell and they're headed back for the coast. I broke out, took what I could and… left."

"How did you get to shore?"

"I had help," she said. "And we'll leave it there for now." She picked at the sleeve of her blouse. "That was last week. And I realized I can't really stay here. I needed to get back, because I left someone there. So… I figured I needed leverage to get back on."

"You're going back to help someone?" Bobby asked.

She nodded. "The one who helped me get away. I think they took him. He hasn't come to join me. And then maybe I'll take the ship. I Iam/i good at being a pirate."

We didn't say anything else. Reyna, her story told, went to a little mini-fridge that the owners must have had for cold drinks while they worked out here. She brought back cold waters and sandwich stuff. There wasn't much, and I felt like we should refuse so she'd have enough for herself, but I knew better than to refuse hospitality. We all took small portions, and ate together in silence as the rain pounded the ground outside.

We roamed around the barn for the duration of the storm. I tried Gwen again and told her that the situation might have changed, but I didn't want to give details on the phone. Dakota made fresh Kool-Aid from the warmish water in the rustic old sink. Reyna brought out a checkerboard she'd found, and she and Bobby played a slow game until the rain finally slowed, then he went out with Dakota to see what they could make of the convertible, if the farm truck was shot.

Reyna went up to her loft. A moment later, I followed her.

She was sitting in the huge window (more of a door, really) where people had once undoubtedly tossed hay down to the animals. It was unglazed, and she dangled her feet over the edge.

"My clothes didn't get very dry," she said, pointing at the clothesline. "I'm going to have to wash them again, too." She looked distastefully at what she was wearing. "This thing came from the resort. The new ones were on the ship. They're better for fighting. No one looks at me like I should be bringing tea."

I sat down beside her and looked out over the farm, to the Pacific not very far beyond. "We can stop at a laundromat, if you want," I suggested.

"What?"

"A laundromat. You put coins in a machine, and -"

"I know what a laundromat is."

"A lot of demigods who've been on their own don't know things like that. You just sounded like you didn't know what I meant."

"It wasn't the laundromat. What 'we' will be stopping at one?"

"We. All of us." I didn't look at her. "Reyna, you don't need to go back to the pirates to have a place. Come with us on the quest, and then, if you still don't want to go to camp, maybe we can find somewhere for you. There are lots of legionnaires who'd probably love to open their homes. I know kids who didn't want to join the legion, and they got adopted. But maybe you'll like us in the end. Maybe you'll let me get you to Lupa, and she can get you to camp. You'll have a place there."

She didn't answer.

I left her to think about it.


	6. I Give Directions To A Horse

**SIX:  
I Give Directions To A Horse**

Once we decided that the rain had actually stopped, we trooped down to the truck again, this time not taking the car. Somehow, after hearing Reyna's story - in her case, after speaking it aloud - the notion that it was a gift from the gods faded away and was replaced by the knowledge that it was the property of a dead family who might not mind us taking shelter, but would certainly object to us taking their car, especially if restoring it was someone's prized hobby, which was the conclusion Dakota had finally come to. ("About half the parts are replaced with vintage parts that have been cleaned up. The rest is… well, not finished.")

Reyna took a turn at inspecting the damage under the truck's hood. Along with a cracked belt and something that was steaming after the rain, it looked like some of the things Bobby's dad had jury-rigged (not least, an engine alert light that wasn't exactly native to the model) were cross-wired. I expected Bobby to get defensive about this, but he just laughed and said his father was always tinkering, more like a son of Vulcan than the agricultural legacy he actually was.

"For a farmer, he's a good mechanic," Bobby mused. "He keeps our stuff running. But he's not… um… Well, he's not going to win any invention awards."

"If I unhook a few things," Dakota said, swigging Kool Aid from his hip flask, "I think we can limp it up to Eureka - it's a long drive, about four hours, but I think once we start rolling, the battery will charge better. But we might need to get out and push if it doesn't work. Or flag down someone with a cell phone, and risk the monsters."

"Then we better wait for morning," I said. "We won't have much time left before dark tonight if something goes wrong."

"You can stay in the barn," Reyna said. "Maybe use the car to jump the battery." She frowned uncertainly. "Unless someone has battery charging powers that aren't as… well, risky. That looks like an old battery."

Bobby smiled, then looked up at the sky. "How about it, Gramps? A tiny little lightning strike, very focused? No?"

"I'll do it," I said. "I mean, I'll hook up the jumper cables. If something electrical goes haywire, I can channel it."

Dakota raised an eyebrow. "If the battery explodes, it's still going to wreck your pretty face."

"I could handle the scarred look."

Reyna muttered, "Boys," and climbed up into the truck cab without asking.

She was right to do it, of course. She was the lightest of us and was the best to steer as we pushed. But I sort of resented that. There were definite disadvantages to no longer being the smallest person I knew.

The walk down to the truck had taken a little less than ten minutes. It took an hour to push the thing up the hill and the ridiculously long driveway. We "parked" it carelessly at a skewed angle, its nose pointing toward the convertible's. We rested for an hour.

Reyna, who'd had the easier physical job, took her turn at exertion by harvesting the vegetables from the family's run-to-riot vegetable garden. Some of it had gone to seed, but it was a warm autumn, and there were plenty of options left. We all scarfed down fresh spinach and tomatoes and peppers, topped off with stalks of rhubarb so tangy it made my eyes water.

It was an excellent dinner.

After, when we'd recovered enough to think about getting something done, Dakota went back to the truck and did some unwiring and tinkering. As the sun started to set, he called the rest of us out. Reyna went to the convertible, whose problems, thankfully, didn't include a dead battery. She popped up the hood. Dakota handed me the snaky ends of the jumper cables and instructed me about how to hook them up.

"I'm really not sure about this," he said. "This truck is pretty ancient, and I have no idea how old the battery is. I suspect the magic around Camp Jupiter may have helped it keep running, to tell the truth."

I shrugged. "Only one way to find out."

"You're the boss," he said, resigned.

I hooked up the cables.

Reyna turned on the convertible, and we let it run for a few minutes, then Bobby turned the ignition on the truck.

The truck did turn on - so far, so good - and at first, nothing else seemed to happen.

Then the truck started to shake. The negative clip slipped off the grounding bolt. Before I could think, before Bobby could turn the truck off, I ran and grabbed it.

The electricity arced through me. I could feel my hair go up, but instead of any fear, I suddenly seemed to know exactly what to do. I reached over and touched the battery.

The truck's sounds steadied out.

Suddenly, I felt something warm come into me. Maybe it was because I was channeling a lot of voltage, but I didn't think so. It came from somewhere else, and I felt like I'd been given a power boost, like a video game character.

In the truck, the radio came on and the lights flashed.

"Enough!" Dakota yelled. "Kill it, Reyna."

She killed her engine.

The truck kept running, and I undid the clamp. Bobby leaned out the window and said, "I'm going to drive it for a while to set the charge." He didn't wait for an okay, and just pulled down the driveway.

I went and got the clamps off the convertible as Reyna got out.

She looked at me, wide-eyed. "That wasn't a normal jump start."

"I wouldn't know. I never did one before."

"You could make a good living getting dead cars to start."

"I didn't do anything."

She looked at Dakota. "Does he always say he didn't do things that he obviously did?"

To my annoyance, Dakota nodded and said, "You have no idea."

We went back into the barn.

I was asleep before Bobby even brought the truck back.

It was a light sleep, and I dreamed only vaguely, which is generally speaking a good thing. I saw the granola-crunchy hiker from Mount Tam, standing under a tornado. I saw a sea monster rising up and attacking a ship. I saw an old man shoving a girl out onto a little motorboat. The images fluttered faster and faster, like they were trying to achieve some kind of rudimentary animation, but they finally settled into my first real memory of Camp Jupiter. I remember swerving and veering down the road, walking along the median toward the place where Corey John was on guard duty. The wind was at my back and it was hard to walk after… after…

Then the dream just slipped off into my comforting fantasy, where I could glide along like a hawk, looking down at the rolling hills, jumping away from monsters into the open air and not coming down until I decided it was safe. The night air slipped around me, pushing me upward, running its fingers through my hair the way my mother used to (in the dream, I was sure of this, but in truth, I don't remember whether my mother ever did such a thing).

It was a restful sort of dream, and I was not ready to be awakened by musket fire.

Whoever it was luckily was a terrible shot. A chunk of wood high on the wall to the left side of the barn door flew down, and all of us jumped up. Legion training: when you're under attack, there's no time for grogginess.

I grabbed Ivlivs and flipped it. It came down as a lance, which I leveled at the door. Bobby came over with his gladius drawn and a dented shield from the camp armory strapped to his arm, which probably should have looked ridiculous since he was otherwise only wearing a pair of Garfield boxer shorts, but really didn't. Dakota had slept in his jeans, and there was a large Kool Aid stain on his chest, from dropping his flask. I guessed this meant he'd been on lookout. I hadn't even thought to set guards before I fell asleep. Stupid. But my team had filled in the gap.

"Who are they?" I asked him.

"My guess? Reyna's pirates." Dakota jerked his chin up toward the loft, where Reyna, wearing a little silk thing, was flattened in the big window, holding an old-fashioned rifle of some kind. I have no idea where she was hiding it, as I hadn't seen it yesterday.

"Reyna?" I called up. "Can you see them?"

But there wasn't a chance for her to answer. Another shot came up, this one a little better. Outside, someone shouted, "We know you're in there, Ramirez-Arellano. Come out and face us, you little thief!"

Reyna didn't take the bait. If she answered - or fired - they'd know exactly where she was.

Bobby took a step closer to me, then said, very quietly, "I parked the truck in back. It should run fine. We've got one gun and three blades. If they've all got guns… well, you know the ancient Roman saying about bringing knives to a gunfight."

I nodded. "You get to the truck and get it ready." I nodded to Dakota as Bobby slipped back into the shadows. "Go up and tell Reyna we're - "

But he didn't have to.

She slithered away from the window and came to the ladder, jumping down from about the halfway point. She had a bag slung over her shoulder. "Bad match," she said.

"Already covered," I told her. "We're going." I realized how that sounded. "I mean, all of us. I was just going to ask Dakota to get you. We couldn't yell."

She rolled her eyes.

I thought it might be fast, maybe even an easy getaway if they weren't blocking the driveway.

Never jinx a mission with a thought like that.

The next shot wasn't from a rifle. I'm not sure _what_ it was - cannon, catapult, something big. The barn doors burst inward with a shower of wooden shrapnel.

"Dakota, get our things," I ordered, and he grabbed as much as he could, taking it to the truck. Somewhere behind us, I heard an engine sputtering to life.

"Get out here, girl!" a man called, coming forward in the light morning rain. He had a wild black beard, run through with beads. His clothes were old-fashioned, like something out of a pirate movie (except for a pair of bright green high top sneakers and a stylish leather briefcase on a strap over his shoulders). Behind him, I could see about a dozen others. They weren't blocking the driveway, just surrounding the convertible that they probably thought was her only means of escape.

Reyna stepped forward. "Leave me alone, Captain Teach."

The man opened his arms in a conciliatory way. "Oh, I'd love to, my dear, but there's a beastie out there who has a promise of your blood, and I intend to give it to him. I know how to tame the beasts of the sea."

Above us, there was a small flash of lightning, and a low rumble of thunder.

I stepped up beside her. "Reyna's not going anywhere with you."

"I've got this," she hissed.

"You don't need to 'have it' by yourself," I told her. "You're a Roman demigod. The legion has your back."

The man, Captain Teach, laughed. "Well, well," he said. "Did you decide to make yourself an unworthy sacrifice, girl?"

Reyna leveled her rifle at him and fired without any hesitation.

Unfortunately, it was an old blunderbuss, and the shot went wild.

She cursed under her breath, and as the pirate laughed at her, she turned it in her hands and swung it like a baseball bat, knocking Teach's weapon out of his hands.

I threw Ivlivs at him, driving him into the wall and pinning him there, then I grabbed Reyna's arm and ran for the truck.

"Your spear!" Reyna shouted.

"It'll come back," I told her. "Run."

Dakota grabbed her and flung her up into the trunk bed. He started to do the same to me, but I used the wheel well and climbed up myself as he jumped into the passenger seat. "Do you have any more ammo?" I asked.

Reyna was already re-loading, so she didn't have to answer.

Bobby slammed on the gas, and the truck lurched out around the barn.

The men saw it and ran toward us.

Reyna shot a round into the ground, kicking up dirt and sending the first wave running backward.

"Jason!" she said, rolling down to reload again. "Blast them!"

"I can't - "

"We don't have time for you to pretend! Just _blast them!_ "

"But I…"

Again, I felt myself struck by a wave of energy, this time not comforting, but galvanizing. Reyna didn't look at me, so I guess I didn't look any different. She finished loading and took another shot, but the pirates were coming back, running in front of the truck. Even if Bobby was the kind of person who'd run them down, I didn't think the truck was any tougher than the men.

I looked up at the sky, where the morning clouds were drawing together. I could see lightning arcing between them, high above.

"Do it, Jason!" Reyna ordered.

Our options were limited. If I didn't succeed, it wasn't like the others would be able to go back and tell anyone how stupid I looked shouting at the sky.

I reached into my pocket. Ivlivs was already back.

I stood up and flipped it.

It went up into the air, glinting in the dim dawn sunlight, and I felt a pirate's bullet go past my left ear.

Then my Imperial gold spear was in my hand. I didn't throw it.

I raised it to the heavens and said, "Lord Jupiter, please!"

The world was full of noise and light, and I felt the truck almost sail forward on the shockwave as the lightning slammed down into the dooryard, electrifying the mud and shocking anyone who wasn't wearing rubber-soled shoes. Men were thrown back in the garden. I hoped it didn't catch the barn on fire. It wasn't ours.

But there wasn't time to worry about it if it did.

The truck bounced down onto the ground, and Bobby gunned it down the driveway. As we turned out onto Route 1, I saw the high, white sails of an old-fashioned ship anchored offshore. I had time to think that they must have rowed ashore from out there, then Bobby pushed the pedal all the way down, and Reyna and I both flattened ourselves in the truck bed to keep from being thrown off. It was too loud to think about anything, let alone talk.

We didn't slow down for a good hour, but I guess up front, Dakota must have finally convinced Bobby that an underage driver in boxer shorts speeding up the coast with two kids loose in the truck bed was likely to catch the wrong kind of attention, because the speed dropped down at last and the truck pulled up a dirt road.

Bobby jumped down from the driver's side and looked over the edge of the bed. "You guys okay? Need to yark?"

"I'm fine," I said. "Reyna?"

She got up. She was covered with scrapes and bruises, since her sleeping outfit wasn't exactly made for combat or riding in the back of a farm truck, but she gave the injuries only the most cursory glance before fishing in her bag and bringing out a pair of binoculars. "I'm fine," she muttered to no one, looking down the road. "The hills are in the way. I can't tell if they're coming."

"I think we lost them," Dakota said, coming around. "I haven't seen them in the rearview."

Reyna didn't seem reassured. She pointed the binoculars up at the sky and hissed, "There's a scout."

"What?" Bobby asked.

She handed him the binoculars.

He raised them, then lowered them again, his eyes wide. "That's a… it's… "

"A pegasus," she said. "They keep him against his will. He helped me escape, but he went back to distract them."

"That's who you want to rescue?" I asked. "The horse?"

She stuck out her chin. "I help people who help me. So don't worry, you helped me, so I won't put you in any more danger. I'll get out here and take care of my own business - "

"Don't be stupid," I said. I took the binoculars. The pegasus was bucking a little bit and obviously not happy with the pirate on his back. Blood was flowing from several wounds around his harness, and on his side where cruel looking spurs were urging him along. "Do you have a way to call him?"

"What?"

"Well, we need to lose the scout, and you want the pegasus away from them. Two birds, one stone?" I smiled.

Reyna stared at me, utterly dumbfounded, as if no one in her life had ever offered to help her.

"Wait," Bobby said. "I got this. I've been around horses - unicorns - my whole life. Great-Grandson of Pales, remember? What's its name?"

Reyna floundered. "I… I don't know his real name. I call him Scipio. After the general who defeated Hannibal."

Bobby smiled. "If you're his friend - and I guess you are, if he helped you so much - and that's what you call him, that's his name. Probably he has a horse name, but that's his name from humans." He looked up and raised his hands. He didn't speak loudly, just firmly. "Scipio," he said. "To us! Safety! Food!" He spread his arms at the long grass on the hill. "And Reyna! Reyna is waiting!"

In the air, I watched the pegasus. It heard the call. It bucked harder against its rider, then it folded its wings and dropped like a stone. The rider could do nothing but cling to his mane. About ten feet over the beach, it spread its wings again and tipped to one side.

The disoriented rider lost hold and plunged down toward the water.

Scipio shook his shoulders, where a harsh looking harness was cutting into him, then turned and flew to us.

Reyna ran up to meet him and threw her arms around his neck. "You're safe!" she said. "You're safe, and let's get you out of this, and…"

She ignored us entirely, except for occasional grateful glances, while she took off the brutal looking tack.

Dakota got the first aid kit and dug up some nectar. He poured some of it onto a handkerchief, then handed the bottle to me. It still felt full, even though he'd poured a lot out of it.

He took the rag over to Reyna, and a moment later, she was laving Scipio's wounds with it. I could see them starting to heal.

In all, we spent half an hour at the side of the road with Reyna's pegasus. I brought him some grass. Reyna and Bobby curried him. Dakota kept refilling the rag with nectar, and the bottle kept not getting any lighter.

"We have to get on down the road," I finally said. "I'm sorry, but we're expected in the north. Reyna, if you want to stay with your horse…"

She kept her hand on Scipio's neck, but shook her head. "I… I don't know why you helped me. All of you. But I don't want to be in your debt. I'll help you from here."

"A pegasus might be handy in that."

She shook her head. "He's not trained as a war horse. He's smart, but… I don't want to put him in the line of fire again." She turned to the horse. "Can you find a safe place?" she asked him.

From nowhere, inspiration struck me. "Scipio," I said, even though I never did have any special skill with horses. "Find Lupa. Lupa will teach you to be safe."

"Uh, Jason," Dakota said. "He's… he's a horse."

"He rescued Reyna and he dumped someone who was scouting us," I said. "I think he qualifies as a hero. And I don't think a wolf is going to make a big distinction between a human and a horse, as far as qualifications go."

"Is the wolf safe?" Reyna asked.

I wanted to say yes, but I couldn't. If heroes didn't live up to Lupa's expectations, the outcome could get bloody. But it didn't happen very often. I think it was a threat more than a reality. I'd never heard of a demigod who was actually attacked by Lupa's wolves in training, and I couldn't see her going for pegasus meat on a whim. Finally, I said, "Probably. And if you decide to stay with us, if you come to camp, you'll go there, too. You can see him there."

"What do you think, boy?" she asked the horse.

He whinnied.

"Fly inland," I said. "Bear south once you can't see the ocean, but not too much. I think, if it's like with demigods, he'll… you'll find guides."

Reyna hugged him again, then said, "Inland is good. Inland is away from them. I'll meet you there." She looked up and smiled at me beautifully, and I suddenly realized, out of nowhere, that I might have a bigger problem than pirates here.

I didn't say anything. And a part of me wondered if maybe, it wasn't a problem. I liked her. I really did. Why shouldn't I like her in the same way she was… the way she was looking at me?

But I didn't.

Maybe it would come later. I decided not to think about it.

I was probably wrong, anyway. Dakota and Bobby had done more to help her horse.

Scipio gave Reyna a friendly nudge and bent his neck a little bit around her neck, a kind of equine hug. Then he rose into the air and flew east.

Reyna watched him, waving, until he disappeared from sight.

We all looked at each other then, and, for the first time, I think we all realized in more than a cursory way that no one was entirely dressed. I was closest, as I'd fallen asleep in my clothes, but I was barefoot.

Dakota had thrown our bags into the truck, and Reyna had hers slung over her shoulder, but I don't think she had any clothes, since the ones she liked were still back on the clothesline in Gualala, and I think the ones she was wearing yesterday were drying from the rain, too. She certainly couldn't keep the quest up wearing a silk… nightgown? Pajama thing? I didn't know what it was called. Some kind of spaghetti strap top with matching shorts. I don't even know why a girl like Reyna would own something like that. It must have come from the resort.

We all looked away from her, scratching our heads awkwardly. Bobby realized he was in boxers and blushed, even though they'd been working together on Scipio's wounds for quite a while. Dakota blushed and pulled a Camp Jupiter tee shirt on over his slightly flabby gut. Reyna fished in her bag, but came up empty-handed.

"I don't even have shoes," she said.

"We'll get you shoes in Eureka," I said. "I have an extra pair, but I don't think they'd fit you." I went to the back of the truck and pulled out my duffel. "And, um… If you want something… um… warmer… " I found a pair of cargo shorts that at least wouldn't be too long for her legs, and one of my own purple Camp Jupiter shirts. I handed them too her without looking at her, which was also strange, since I'd spent an hour practically on top of her in the truck.

She rolled her eyes and took them, There was a stand of rocks nearby, and she disappeared behind them. Bobby took the opportunity to pull on jeans and the first shirt that came into his hand. We all put on shoes. She came out a minute later, dressed like any girl at Camp Jupiter. She looked perfectly normal. My cargo shorts were capris on her, but they looked fine. She started braiding her hair as she came back to us.

The four of us, now fully clothed, looked at each other cautiously.

Bobby broke the silence. "Well," he said, "It's going to be a squeeze in that cab, but I think we can do it. Reyna can sit on my lap." He waggled his eyebrows.

"You sit in mine," she said dryly.

"Sure thing," Bobby said amiably.

And that was how we made our way the rest of the way to Eureka - nearly three hours of Dakota driving, me sitting cramped in the middle, and Bobby sitting on Reyna's lap with his head scraping the ceiling. I think Reyna slept a little bit.

After that, there was no chance of her not being part of the group. She just _was_.

By the time we got to Eureka, we were starving, so the first order of business was buying Reyna a pair of flip flops so we could actually go into a store or a restaurant to eat. Since she couldn't come with us, I had to guess her foot size, and I got it wildly wrong. Her feet were almost lost in the purple things, her toes buried under the big flower (I figured I'd get her something pretty). She was laughing and trying to balance when we went into the Bayshore Mall.

And walked directly into another pirate.


	7. The Queen Gives Me My Allowance

**SEVEN:  
The Queen Gives Me My Allowance**

I drew Ivlivs, and Reyna produced a knife from her bag. Bobby pulled out his gladius.

Dakota raised an arm and put it on Bobby's wrist, but looked at the pirate, "Guess you're in town for the big party?" he asked.

The pirate, who I saw was in much better shape than the ones this morning, said, "Yeah… and it's not here. And besides, weapons are supposed to be peace-tied." He looked at Bobby's gladius. "That's not period, either. Did someone try to sell that to you at the fair?"

Bobby frowned, looking confused. "Um…"

The pirate moved, and I saw what Dakota must have seen right away. On the wall behind him was a sign for the Excalibur Medieval Tournament and Market Faire in Arcata. As soon as I saw that, I also realized that our pirate was slurping a large soda and carrying a road map in his pocket. I'm not even sure he was a pirate, just a sailor of some kind. A Viking, maybe, in the middle ages? I wasn't sure.

I stepped forward and said, "The weapons are just plastic toys."

He wrinkled his nose. "Of course they are. I can see that."

"And we're putting them away now." I looked at Bobby, then at Reyna. Bobby put his gladius away immediately. Reyna was more hesitant, but finally complied. I hadn't flipped Ivlivs yet, but I put it away anyway as a show of good faith. I'd have to put a commendation in for Dakota, for noticing the real situation so quickly.

A few other people in medieval garb drifted in. There was a jester, a pair of wenches in low-cut dresses, and a guy wearing part of a suit of armor. At the very back, a tall woman dressed as a queen, with her hair piled up in a crown-like arrangement, stood watching the rest dispassionately. Her dress was long and peacock blue.

"What's going on?" the half-knight asked.

"These guys wanted to duel with plastic swords," the pirate said.

"You shouldn't do that off the fairgrounds," one of the wenches put in, snapping bubble gum.

"Uh, yeah."

"We couldn't get out to the fair," Reyna said. "We wanted to, but no ride. I guess you guys just looked like you were having fun."

"We can drive you," the queen said suddenly. She stepped up between the others. "We're on an… excursion. They needed supplies. I am…. shuttling." She smiled coolly.

Alarm bells went off. Harmless role-players or not, the idea of just jumping in a stranger's car seemed like a colossally bad notion. Except… I looked at the queen. The long peacock-blue dress. The cold eyes.

"No, thank you," I said, and tried to take a joking tone. "You know… quests of our own!"

The queen continued smiling her cold, practiced smile. "I see. Well, be careful, young knights. Quests are not always as simple as they seem." She turned at this and walked serenely down the hall toward Famous Footwear. The others followed her.

"O…kay," Bobby said. "Let's get something to eat." He nodded toward a small row of fast food places on our left.

Dakota went for the Subway store, Bobby got Burger King, and Reyna and I went for Chinese food. We met at a dirty little table, our trays piled high. Dakota had a large ice water, and he poured in red Kool-Aid mix and about ten little packs of sugar.

"Hey," I said. "Good job back there, but let's not blow up your heart on a sugar rush, okay?"

He shrugged. "It won't hurt me."

"I'm thinking we should go out to Arcata," I said.

Bobby frowned. "Um… you're the boss. But why?"

"The queen… I think… never mind. Let me think it out."

So we ate without talking about our new acquaintances. Dakota kept drinking Kool Aid long after I thought his cup should have been empty, and I realized that my Diet Pepsi wasn't getting any lower, either, no matter how much I drank. It had never occurred to me to wonder if he had any powers from his father, Bacchus. This was a pretty good one. "Thanks for the bottomless drink," I told him.

He grinned. "Cheers."

"You didn't tell me about this."

He shrugged. "Yeah, well, we can't all summon lightning. Or fly."

"I can't fly."

"You said you couldn't call lightning, either."

"He can fly?" Reyna asked.

"He _says_ he can't."

"At least now he does," Bobby added.

"Guys," I warned.

They paid no attention. Reyna was listening avidly, and I realized with some dismay that they were preening for her.

And the preening consisted of telling _my_ story.

It was embarrassing.

"Jason," Dakota said, nodding toward me, "used to say that he flew to camp."

"What?"

"Yeah," Bobby said, leaning toward her. "He's a legend. He showed up in the middle of the night after a thunderstorm - "

"- three years old, best as they could figure -"

"- with monsters running in behind him, but he was just toddling in - "

"The clouds were rolling up behind him, covering the moon." Dakota moved his hands in front of his face. "There was lightning behind him but it wasn't raining in the camp, and BOOM!" He clapped his hands. "A monster just got fried right on the road."

"Stop it," I ordered. "I mean it."

For a second, it worked, then Bobby grinned and said, "The praetors asked how he'd gotten so far by himself and he said, 'I flew.'"

I felt my face getting warm, and I stared down at my orange chicken. "I. Was. Three." I looked apologetically at Reyna. "I must have had a dream or something."

She raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure?"

"Yes. No one else saw anything like that."

She looked doubtful.

I ground my teeth. Life as the son of Jupiter: They don't doubt that you might have flown down from Sonoma _sans_ plane, but they completely doubt it when you deny it.

After we finished eating, we found a mall map and headed to Walmart to get Reyna some clothes of her very own. She deliberately picked some purple tee shirts from the bargain table, then got a couple of pairs of jeans and some sneakers. While she looked at underwear, the rest of us went to camping supplies and got her a duffel bag. It matched ours, mostly. We did get a few odd looks from salespeople who noticed us carrying large bags, but none of us had exactly felt comfortable leaving all of our worldly goods in an open truck bed. We had to submit to a couple of searches, though a quick sniff should have been enough for security to know the bags weren't full of new clothes.

We checked out and went to a bench in the hall, where Reyna packed up and changed out of the oversized flip-flops. I noticed that she didn't throw them out, even though they were wildly too big for her, but I didn't make anything of it. Bobby was regaling her with a story about how, when we were seven and he hadn't been in the legion yet, I'd let him wear my armor and play war games, and then _he'd_ gotten in trouble with the centurion, which was hardly fair, since it had been my idea and -

She zipped up her new duffel bag and was just putting the strap on her shoulder when she froze, looking down the hall.

A group of six men had just rounded the corner.

"More people from the fair?" Dakota asked.

"No…" Reyna said.

And that was all the time we had.

The men who were not medieval role-players spotted us and one of them shouted, "There she is!"

We ran.

The floors were slick and security guards yelled at all of us to stop running, but none of us listened. I passed a book store and dumped a cardboard bin of paperbacks across the floor. It slowed the pirates only a little bit as they dodged the slippery little things.

We burst out into the sunny parking lot and Bobby let out a string of curses.

It was easy to spot the truck. For one thing, in a parking lot full of SUVs, it was the only early-50s model work truck to be seen.

For another, the windshield had been shattered and the tires were slashed. The hood had been popped up and something under it was steaming.

Bobby turned around to start a fight. He started to run back inside.

I put on my full centurion voice. "Legionnaire, stop."

He stopped.

"We need to get away," I said. "Bobby, we'll fix it somehow."

"How, exactly, do you propose we get away, centurion?"

"I don't…"

A large blue SUV glided up beside us and the tinted window came down.

The queen was at the wheel. "Get in," she said. "It seems you need a ride after all."

An automatic sliding door opened on the side.

We looked at each other.

The mall door burst open and the pirates started to pour out.

We tossed our duffel bags into the SUV (the court jester shouted "Hey!" as one of them clipped him), then launched ourselves inside. The vehicle was moving before the door even closed completely. We were on our way to Arcata, for some reason, and I had no idea how to get control back. Maybe there would be a shuttle back to town and we could catch a bus up the coast.

For the first few minutes of the ride, no one said much. The roleplayers buckled into the seats and glared at us until we buckled ourselves in as well.

One of the two wenches (they were both busty girls with red hair; this one was wearing a blue dress) said, "So… this is your first Excalibur?"

Reyna, who seemed to be very adaptable, smiled and said, "Yeah. Always heard about it. Never went."

"It's fun. You should catch the jousting."

"I don't know much about medieval fighting," Reyna said. "Never tried it."

"What kind of fighting _do_ you know?" the pirate/Viking/sailor asked.

"Lots. But mostly either modern or gladiatorial. Roman."

The jester rolled his eyes. "Everyone skips the middle ages. It's like they think nothing happened from the fall of Rome to the Renaissance."

Since that is, more or less, how they teach history in New Rome schools, I didn't say anything.

"Well," the queen said, "I'm sure it was a bit of a letdown after the Empire."

"Everyone thinks that," the jester pouted. "It's not true. There was a lot of advancement." He sneered. "'Middle Ages.' At least it's not 'Dark Ages' anymore, but still, like it's just some transitional thing." He shook his head. "It's a lot of years. Lots of inventions. Good military stuff, too. I'm taking military history from this new guy at Stanford this semester, and he was showing us this cool siege tower that he recreated and…" He sighed. "We get bad publicity. I blame the Renaissance."

The pirate/Viking/sailor snorted. "Well, if ships keep disappearing, we might have to start putting, 'Here there be monsters' on our sea maps again."

"That's complete crap," the other wench (this one in a yellow dress) said.

"Is not," the jester told her. "Ships have been going down like crazy. Atlantic and Pacific."

"No. I looked it up on Snopes. Total urban legend. There are no more shipwrecks than usual. We just start paying attention to them and it looks like a lot. The numbers don't back it up."

I looked at Bobby, and guessed that he was thinking the same as I was. "Like… like the ones up in Oregon?" I asked.

"Exactly," Yellow-Dress said. "There are always fishing boats going down out there. There were a couple in a really short time, but we're not off the curve. The sea is dangerous."

"And what about the monster rumors?" I prodded.

She laughed. "Yeah. Just full of monsters." She rolled her eyes. "A boat goes down, then someone sees an orca or something, and the next thing you know, people start talking Loch Ness."

"Loch Ness?" Dakota asked. "That's a - "

"Weird story," I finished. While Camp Jupiter had been in England, they'd used the Scottish lochs for training, and there were a few times that the mist had apparently not worked exactly right. "So, there've been what, five boats down?"

"Twelve." Yellow-Dress shrugged. "Maybe a little more than last year, but Snopes said it was well within the curve. The seas have been choppy."

"It's not like anyone's seen tentacles," Reyna said.

"Exactly," Yellow-Dress agreed. "Complete crap."

After this, the conversation drifted back to the medieval faire, and the utterly unfair treatment of the era from classicists and Renaissance thinkers. The jester talked about his college class in military history (the professor was apparently more interested in the early twentieth century, but was knowledgeable about… well, pretty much _everything_ ), and the wenches were in a theater program at the College of the Redwoods. The knight was a freshly minted accountant. The queen kept them talking. It wasn't until the car pulled into a parking area that I realized she had deftly steered them away from asking what any of us were doing, where we were from, or why we, all of us too young to be on our own, were hopping into cars with strangers.

She pulled the SUV to a stop and got out, opening the doors and gesturing to all of us to exit the vehicle.

She held back Dakota, Bobby, Reyna, and me. She actually put her hand on my shoulder, and for a minute, her form shifted, and I thought, _monster_.

But her form wasn't a monster.

She waited until the others were clearly away, then said, "Open your hand, Jason Grace."

I blinked.

The woman standing in front of me was no longer in the peacock blue dress. She was wearing black, and there was a goatskin cloak over her shoulders. The others' expressions didn't change, so I guessed I was the only one seeing it.

She put the car key in my hand.

I blinked. "I, um…"

"Hitchhiking to a mission is ill-advised," she said.

Bobby's eyebrows went up. "Are you a legionnaire?"

Lady Juno smiled. I'm sure that, to Bobby, she was just a medieval role-player in a blue dress. "I should hope you knew who I was before getting into the car." She turned back to me, and now the glamor was there for me as well. "Take it, centurion. Consider it… an allowance. A gift to the camp when you have finished."

I'd never heard of a god granting anyone a car. Or anything else, other than cryptic visions. "If we could just contact the camp…."

"You did contact the camp. This is an answer." She looked at me with no compassion whatsoever. "You don't have time to waste with pirates. You have places you need to be, and… various things you need to see."

"What do I need to see? The sea monster?"

She drew her shoulders up, and even in her disguise, she was too regal to look at directly. "This is your first test, champion. The first of many. I would know what you're capable of seeing without having it pointed out to you."

My first thought was, _That's not a fair test_. In fact, that was pretty much my second thought, and my third. But since this was a goddess - and a seriously powerful one, who was known to abruptly lose her patience with sons of Jupiter - I didn't say anything other than, "I hope I'll see what I need."

"As do I." She turned toward the faire. "Now, perhaps I should see if… " She wrinkled her nose. "If I missed anything in the Dark Ages."

She glided away majestically across the parking lot, and then she wasn't there. She didn't disappear, exactly. There was no moment of "poof!" She was there, and then she wasn't.

I turned to my companions, who looked dazed. I wondered what they'd seen, and decided not to ask. That might lead to even more questions.

I gave Dakota the keys, as an early driver's license wasn't part of the gift.

We got back in.

While we'd been standing outside, the main body of the SUV had been loaded with coolers full of healthy fruit drinks (Dakota sniffed one experimentally, then added Kool Aid powder to it) and a picnic basket full of sandwiches. There was also an envelope of mortal money.

We ate as we continued our trip north. This time, we stuck inland a little bit. As we drove, the encounter at the fairgrounds seemed to get fuzzy, like I was looking at it from the wrong end of a telescope. The others didn't mention it at all… it was almost like they had forgotten where we'd come across transportation.

Dakota found a country music station, and tortured all of us with it for a couple of hours.

We crossed the Oregon border and found a little motel. It wasn't terribly late, but I decided that it would be better to get to Winchester Bay in the morning, with the full day of daylight ahead of us. If I was supposed to see something, it would be easier that way.

It was a cheap place, and we took four rooms, using the money from the envelope. (I was going to get two - one for the three of us, and one for Reyna - but Bobby had complained that it wasn't fair for her to get her own place if we all didn't. She agreed. ) We worked out a system of knocking on each other's walls in case of emergencies, then turned in.

As strange as it was to stay in Bobby's family home, it was even stranger to be by myself at night. It was just not a luxury that I could indulge in at Camp Jupiter.

I took one of the sandwiches from the picnic basket and burned it in the ashtray for Juno, opening the window and hoping hard for a breeze to keep the smoke from hitting the smoke detector. (I was lucky. I was often lucky with the wind.)

I decided to watch television. There was a marathon of _Buffy_ , which I figured I could talk about with Lucie back at camp. I was halfway through the first one when Bobby opened my door and said, "I thought I heard that music." Dakota was in twenty minutes after that, just about bouncing off the walls from mixing heavily sweetened drink mix into sugary juices. Reyna wandered by on a walk, noticed all of us in there, and promptly climbed into an armchair. She'd never seen the show, and we all took turns telling her who everyone on it was, and about Lucie's obsession with it, and then about other kids at camp.

By the fourth episode, we were singing along with the theme song.

We all ended up sleeping in my room. Dakota, who crashed down from his sugar high and nearly passed out, got the bed. The rest of us were on the floor.

I was the last to fall asleep, though I'd been drifting in and out for a while (I kept missing parts of the plot). Bobby was snoring loudly, and Reyna was sprawled out on her stomach, drooling on the rug.

The television droned on. I fell asleep.

At first in my dream, I took the bronze shield for the edge of the moon, but I recognized it soon enough. It was reflecting the early light of dawn as I ran through a forest, bashing at small monsters. Somewhere, someone else was training with me, but I couldn't see her. I could only see my reflection in

 _(Aegis)_

the shield - a small, dark-haired girl, with heavy black lines around my eyes. I couldn't see myself very clearly, partly because of the curvature of the shield, mostly because it was bouncing as I ran.

Something burst out of the shadows, and I smashed over to the side, then pulled back and said, "Jeez, Grover. That's a good way to end up a shrub."

The creature in front of me was a faun, standing in heavy shadows under a tree. "Nah, I almost had you."

"No, really, you didn't." I shook my head. "I could have zapped you, you know. I'm a little slower recognizing you, and we all have goat soup."

"Yeah, but you're _not_ slower." The faun grinned. "You're never slower."

"I've been a tree," I said. In the dream, this felt like it made perfect sense. "I've been used to going a little slower."

"You're the same as ever." The grin broke into a wide, fond smile, and I felt like this faun was genuinely happy to see me. "The monsters don't stand a chance."

"They stand plenty of chances if I don't get back to training."

We were both quiet, looking up at the stars. "Where are they, do you think?" the faun asked. "Where would he go?"

"I don't know," I said. "They were out at sea. Could be anywhere. A little assist from certain nautical powers would be helpful."

"Tyson says there's a lot going on there."

"Yeah. Well, we're seeing precious little of it here, as usual," I said. My voice sounded broken and betrayed. "They never help us much, do they…?"

The dream went on a little longer, but it stopped having any real thread to it. I looked down into the shield again, but instead of seeing my face, I saw the black night sky. The stars set into it began to fall.

I awoke to early dawn, and got the others up.

We piled into the SUV, closed out the rooms that we mostly hadn't used, and started north.

Three hours later, we met the Trojan Sea Serpent.


End file.
